Download Participles in Time. The Development of the Perfect Tense

Ida Larsson
PARTICIPLES IN TIME
The Development of the Perfect Tense in Swedish
NORDISTICA GOTHOBURGENSIA
EDITORER: LARS-GUNNAR ANDERSSON OCH BO RALPH
29
PARTICIPLES IN TIME
The Development of the Perfect Tense in Swedish
(Svensk sammanfattning)
Ida Larsson
GÖTEBORG
2009
Abstract
Title: Participles in Time. The Development of the Perfect Tense in Swedish.
Language: English. Svensk sammanfattning.
Author: Ida Larsson
This thesis is concerned with the syntactic-semantic development of the perfect
tense from a construction with possessive HAVE and a tenseless participial complement. Both participles and auxiliary are assumed to have internal syntactic structure, and the different perfect-type constructions can thus be related synchronically
and diachronically to each other. Cross-linguistic variation is tied to the properties of
the present tense, the auxiliary, and the aspectual composition of the participle.
Possessive and temporal HAVE are assumed to involve prepositional elements in
languages like Swedish and English: possessive HAVE involves a possessive preposition and temporal HAVE a temporal preposition. This accounts for the difference between the two types of HAVE, as well as for the restricted semantics of the
perfect in Swedish and English. Participles differ both with regard to the parts of the
verb phrase they include and the presence/absence of tense and aspect.
The thesis contains a study of the early occurrences of perfect-type constructions
with HAVE in Old Germanic, an investigation of the use of BE + active participle in
older Swedish and of the loss of BE in Early Modern Swedish. A distinction between resultant state participles and target state participles is shown to be relevant
for the analysis of the construction with BE + active or passive participle in older
Swedish. The loss of BE is analysed as a change in the properties of the participial
stativizer. In Present-Day Swedish, resultant state participles are formed only from
verbs with an external argument, but these include also certain verbs with unaccusative behaviour.
The perfect tense is argued to have developed from a resultant state construction
which expresses bounded or resultative aspect. The establishment of the perfect in
the linguistic community can be observed as a change in the relative frequency of
perfects and resultant state expressions over a considerable period of time.
Keywords: Scandinavian syntax, Swedish, language change, tense, aspect, perfect,
participle, supine, resultative, unaccusativity, auxiliary selection
© Ida Larsson 2009
Distribution:
ACTA UNIVERSITATIS GOTHOBURGENSIS
P.O. Box 222
SE-405 30 GÖTEBORG, Sweden
Intellecta Infolog, Kållered, 2009
ISBN 978-91-7346-663-9
ISSN 0078-1134
Acknowledgements
Time is a strange thing – the more you fill it, the quicker it seems to
pass. There are numerous people that have made the last few years
eventful and enjoyable, and whom I now have the great pleasure to
thank.
First and foremost, I want to express my gratitude to my supervisors,
Elisabet Engdahl and Bo Ralph. Since I first started working on this
thesis, I have been discussing linguistics with Elisabet. We have covered
a variety of topics and a good number of data, and she has always
challenged and encouraged me. I have come to rely on her knowledge
and experience, her good sense, and her kindness. Bo Ralph not only has
considerable knowledge of historical linguistics and philology, he also
understands the sometimes painful and worrisome process of writing a
book, and he has often been able to reassure me when I have felt discouraged. He has always encouraged me to make my own decisions, and
he has supported me when I have done so. Thank you both for the
interest you have shown in this project!
During my time as a PhD student, I have been fortunate to visit
several different research environments. I wish to express my heartfelt
thanks to Cecilia Falk and Christer Platzack, who let me attend their
classes in historical linguistics and syntax, and to the people at the
department in Lund who always made me feel welcome. In 2005, I had
the opportunity to participate in the LSA Summer School at MIT and
Harvard, and I want to thank the professors and students for inspiring
discussions. I am particularly grateful to Richard Kayne, Tony Kroch
and David Pesetsky for their questions and suggestions. Furthermore, I
am grateful to Höskuldur Þráinsson and the Institute of Linguistics in
Reykjavík for welcoming me as a guest researcher in the fall of 2006.
For discussions, suggestions and Icelandic data, I wish to thank Þórhallur Eyþórsson, Jóhannes Gísli Jónsson, Michael Schäfer, Höskuldur Þráinsson, Theódóra Anna Torfadóttir and Matthew Whelpton. I am also
most grateful to Áslaug Marinósdóttir and Snorri for their generosity.
The visit was funded by STINT, The Swedish Foundation for International Cooperation in Research and Higher Education. In 2007, I
spent a couple of weeks visiting the Department of Linguistics in Stuttgart. I wish to express my gratitude to Artemis Alexiadou, Kirsten
Gengel, Thomas McFadden and Florian Schäfer for their comments and
suggestions. I also want to thank Kirsten for her hospitality and friendship.
I have discussed the topics of this thesis with a number of other
people in Gothenburg and elsewhere. I would particularly like to mention Maia Andréasson, Robin Cooper, Östen Dahl, Elly van Gelderen,
Christer Platzack, Gillian Ramchand and the group of people at the
Grammar seminar in Gothenburg. In addition, I wish to express my
gratitude to Fredrik Heinat and Erik Magnusson who read earlier versions of the text, and to Marit Julien who scrutinized a first draft for my
final seminar. Thank you all for your suggestions and questions, which
have often forced me to clarify, and which sometimes pointed me in
new directions. Moreover, I am grateful to the editors, Lars-Gunnar
Andersson and Bo Ralph, and to Kristinn Jóhannesson, who turned my
manuscript into a book. I want to thank all the people that make the
department in Gothenburg a good place to be, and who made it so easy
for me to feel at home on the second, fourth and seventh floor. During
the long days in July, I was happy to find Rudolf Rydstedt in the office,
and he always seemed ready to cheer me up, put things in perspective,
and empty the dishwasher.
A number of other people have contributed directly to this thesis with
their judgements on the linguistic data. I particularly want to mention
Karin Cavallin, Lisa Christensen, Robert Zola Christensen, Anna Hannesdóttir, Kristinn Jóhannesson, Fredrik Jørgensen, Dimitrios Kokkinakis, Terje Lohndahl, Benjamin Lyngfelt, Maria Melchiors, Lilja Øvrelid,
Julia Prentice, Halldór Sigurðsson and Frida Wallentin. Thank you!
I have received financial support from Helge Ax:son Johnssons stiftelse and Wilhelm & Martina Lundgrens vetenskapsfond. Support from
Kungliga och Hvitfeldska stiftelsen allowed me to finish the thesis without interruption. They are hereby gratefully acknowledged.
Life is more than linguistics, and I am happy to have many dear
friends near and far to remind me of this. I am grateful to Peter Andersson, Annika Bergström and Erik Magnusson for their support and
friendship, and Inga-Lill Grahn for our discussions about life and language. Karin Cavallin, Lilja Øvrelid and Frida Wallentin have been with
me through all the ups and downs of this project. Karin and Lilja, I am
more than anything immensely happy to have had your good company
during these years. Frida, thank you for never believing that linguistics
is the centre of the world, or my thesis the end of it. For the love and
support of my family, I really have no words. I think of the summers in
Jämtland, dad who carried everything we needed in his backpack, and I
believe that it might be time to climb a new mountain.
Thank you all!
Gothenburg, August 2009
Ida Larsson
Table of contents
1. Introduction .................................................................................. 1
1.1.
Aim ................................................................................. 3
1.2.
Terminology ................................................................... 4
1.3.
Scope and outline ............................................................ 4
1.4.
Historical and modern data sources ................................. 6
1.4.1.
Historical data ................................................................. 7
1.4.2.
Modern data .................................................................... 8
2. Participles, categories and events .............................................. 10
2.1.
Terminology ................................................................. 10
2.2.
Participles ..................................................................... 13
2.2.1.
Adjectival participles .................................................... 14
2.2.2.
Past participles ............................................................... 19
2.2.3.
Perfect participles and the supine ................................... 25
2.2.4.
Summary ....................................................................... 29
2.3.
Questions of syntactic category ..................................... 30
2.4.
Unaccusatives and the structure of events ...................... 35
2.4.1.
Unaccusatives and unergatives ...................................... 35
2.4.2.
Ramchand’s First Phase Syntax .................................... 41
2.5.
Concluding remarks ...................................................... 48
3. Tense, aspect and perfect ........................................................... 50
3.1.
Terminology ................................................................. 51
3.2.
Introduction to the perfect ............................................. 52
3.3.
Temporal-aspectual intervals and the syntax
of the perfect ................................................................ 56
3.3.1.
The argument structure of tense and aspect ................... 56
3.3.2.
A biclausal perfect ........................................................ 60
3.3.3.
Conclusion .................................................................... 69
3.4.
The semantics of the perfect .......................................... 70
3.4.1.
The readings of the perfect ............................................ 70
3.4.2.
The perfect time span .................................................... 73
3.4.3.
Deriving the readings of the perfect .............................. 76
3.4.4.
3.5.
3.5.1.
3.5.2.
3.5.3.
3.5.4.
3.6.
3.6.1.
3.6.2.
3.7.
Conclusion .................................................................... 78
The present perfect puzzle, the perfect time span
and the auxiliary ............................................................ 79
The present perfect puzzle and the perfect time span ..... 79
The perfect time span, the biclausal perfect
and the contribution of HAVE ...................................... 87
Positional adverbials in past perfects ............................. 92
Conclusion .................................................................... 95
A note on non-finite perfects and the inferential
perfect ........................................................................... 96
Tensed and tenseless infinitivals and non-finite
perfects ......................................................................... 96
The inferential perfect ................................................. 101
Conclusion .................................................................. 103
4. Early perfects ........................................................................... 104
4.1.
Distinguishing perfects ................................................ 105
4.1.1.
Word order .................................................................. 107
4.1.2.
Agreement .................................................................. 108
4.1.3.
Case ............................................................................ 109
4.1.4.
Intransitive verbs and perfect readings ........................ 110
4.1.5.
Summary ..................................................................... 112
4.2.
Early Germanic perfects with HAVE .......................... 113
4.2.1.
Material ....................................................................... 113
4.2.2.
Gothic ......................................................................... 114
4.2.3.
Scandinavian ............................................................... 116
4.2.4.
German ....................................................................... 118
4.2.5.
English ........................................................................ 121
4.2.6.
Summary ..................................................................... 123
4.3.
Emerging perfects ....................................................... 124
4.3.1.
Material ....................................................................... 125
4.3.2.
Verbs in the complement of HAVE ............................. 127
4.3.2.1. Distinguishing verb types ............................................ 127
4.3.2.2. Perfect-type constructions with HAVE
in the Scandinavian material ....................................... 131
4.3.2.3. English .........................................................................134
4.3.3.
Frequencies of perfects ............................................... 136
4.4.
Borrowing and areal diffusion ..................................... 138
4.5.
Concluding remarks .................................................... 140
5. The HAVE/BE alternation in older Swedish ..........................
5.1.
Perfect-type constructions with BE + participle ..........
5.1.1.
BE + active participle...................................................
5.1.2.
Stative passives ...........................................................
5.2.
Material .......................................................................
5.3.
Overview of the HAVE/BE alternation
in older Swedish ..........................................................
5.4.
Counterfactuals and tense ............................................
5.5.
BE in experiential perfects ..........................................
5.5.1.
Experiential contexts and HAVE/BE
in older Scandinavian ..................................................
5.5.2.
Adverbials and BE ......................................................
5.5.2.1. Negation ......................................................................
5.5.2.2. Adverbs of frequency and iteration .............................
5.5.2.3. Manner adverbials .......................................................
5.5.2.4. A remark on adverbs ...................................................
5.6.
Concluding remarks ....................................................
142
143
143
147
150
153
157
168
170
174
175
179
181
183
184
6. Aspects of perfect-like results .................................................. 187
6.1.
Target states and resultant states ................................. 187
6.2.
Times and events ......................................................... 197
6.2.1.
Deriving telicity .......................................................... 197
6.2.2.
(Un)boundedness in Swedish ...................................... 206
6.2.3
Summary ..................................................................... 216
6.3.
The aspectual interpretation of resultant state
participles .................................................................... 217
6.3.1.
Three different stative participles ................................ 217
6.3.2.
The aspect of resultant state participles ....................... 219
6.3.3.
Temporal adverbials and BE ....................................... 224
6.3.4.
Summary ..................................................................... 227
6.4.
Older Swedish BE and the Icelandic vera búinn að ..... 228
6.5.
Summary ..................................................................... 232
7. The loss of BE ...........................................................................
7.1.
Material and data collection ........................................
7.1.1.
Texts ...........................................................................
7.1.2.
Data collection ............................................................
7.2.
Outline of the change ..................................................
7.2.1.
The period of change ...................................................
7.2.2.
HAVE and BE in the 17th century ...............................
7.3.
Tracing shifts in the variation ......................................
233
234
235
238
246
246
250
254
7.3.1.
7.3.2.
7.3.3.
7.3.4.
7.3.5.
7.4.
7.4.1.
7.4.2.
7.4.3.
7.5.
7.5.1.
7.5.2.
7.5.3.
7.6.
7.6.1.
7.6.2.
7.7.
Agency ........................................................................ 255
Particles ...................................................................... 257
Types of events ........................................................... 260
Varda and bliva ........................................................... 264
Conclusion .................................................................. 266
Unaccusatives in the complement of BE ..................... 268
BE in Present-Day Swedish ........................................ 268
Norwegian Bokmål and Icelandic ............................... 274
Summary ..................................................................... 278
Different kinds of unaccusatives ................................. 278
(A)typical unaccusatives ..............................................278
Agentive unaccusatives ............................................... 283
Summary ..................................................................... 286
A note on unaccusativity ............................................. 287
Decomposition and unaccusativity .............................. 289
Summary ..................................................................... 295
Conclusion: the loss of BE and the establishment
of HAVE ..................................................................... 296
8. On the structure of past participles .........................................
8.1.
Stative participles and implicit arguments ...................
8.2.
Target state participles ................................................
8.2.1.
The structure of target state and resultant state
participles ....................................................................
8.2.1.1. Greek ..........................................................................
8.2.1.2. German .......................................................................
8.2.1.3. Swedish .......................................................................
8.2.2.
Lexical restrictions on target state participles ..............
8.2.3.
Summary .....................................................................
8.3.
Progressive states ........................................................
8.3.1.
The structure of progressive state participles ...............
8.3.2.
Restrictions .................................................................
8.3.3.
Summary .....................................................................
8.4.
The participial stativizer ..............................................
8.4.1.
Stative and eventive participles ...................................
8.4.2.
The stativizer ..............................................................
8.4.3.
A micro-parameter ......................................................
8.5.
Conclusion and open questions ...................................
300
300
305
306
306
308
309
311
319
319
319
320
323
324
324
328
331
331
9. HAVE and BE ..........................................................................
9.1.
An overview of possessive HAVE + past participle ....
9.1.1.
Stative and eventive participles ...................................
9.1.2.
Target states, progressive states and resultant states ....
9.1.3.
On the position of the object .......................................
9.2.
Possessive HAVE and Pposs .........................................
9.2.1.
The interpretation of HAVE + past participle ..............
9.2.2.
The decomposition of possessive HAVE ....................
9.2.3.
Concluding remarks ....................................................
9.3.
Temporal HAVE and PT .............................................
9.3.1.
Possessive and temporal HAVE ..................................
9.3.2.
The time of perfect-like constructions with HAVE
and the reanalysis of Pposs ............................................
9.3.3.
BE and the German perfect .........................................
9.3.4.
Summary .....................................................................
9.4.
A note on auxiliary selection .......................................
9.4.1.
Some cross-linguistic variation ...................................
9.4.2.
Possessive HAVE + unaccusative verbs ......................
9.4.3.
Summary .....................................................................
9.5.
A remark on HAVE-omission .....................................
9.6.
Summary .....................................................................
334
335
336
338
340
345
345
348
354
355
355
10. On the development of the perfect ..........................................
10.1.
Participle agreement in Old Scandinavian ...................
10.1.1. HAVE + agreeing participle in Old Scandinavian .......
10.1.2. Types of agreeing participles in the complement
of HAVE in Old Norse ................................................
10.1.3. Conclusion ..................................................................
10.2.
Case in the Old Germanic sources ...............................
10.3.
Passive and active en-participles .................................
10.3.1. Passive, active and case ...............................................
10.3.2. A note on GET-participles ..........................................
10.3.3. A note on the morphological passive ...........................
10.3.4. Possible implications for the development
of the perfect ...............................................................
10.3.5. Summary .....................................................................
10.4.
Supine morphology .....................................................
10.5.
The development of the perfect ...................................
10.5.1. Changes in the structure of the participle ....................
10.5.2. Grammaticalization of HAVE and BE ........................
10.5.3. On the development of a new tense .............................
384
385
385
361
364
366
367
368
371
374
374
382
391
397
398
401
401
405
411
415
417
418
424
425
429
434
11. Participles in time ..................................................................... 438
11.1.
Past, perfect and other participles ................................ 439
11.2.
Concluding remarks .................................................... 443
Sammanfattning ............................................................................. 447
Bibliography ................................................................................... 459
Tables
TABLE
TABLE
TABLE
TABLE
4.1.
4.2.
4.3.
4.4.
TABLE 4.5.
TABLE 4.6.
TABLE 4.7.
TABLE 4.8.
TABLE 5.1.
TABLE 5.2.
TABLE 7.1.
TABLE 7.2.
TABLE 7.3.
TABLE 7.4.
TABLE 7.5.
TABLE 7.6.
TABLE 7.7.
Investigated Old Germanic texts ................................
Investigated Old Norse texts ......................................
Investigated Old Swedish texts ..................................
Verbs in the complement of HAVE in four
Old Norse texts ..........................................................
Verbs in the complement of HAVE in four
Old Swedish texts ......................................................
Verbs in the complement of present tense HAVE
in Old and Early Middle English (adapted from
Carey 1994:107, her Table 1) ....................................
Frequency of perfects of the verb vara ‘be’
in UL and SUC ..........................................................
The overall frequency of HAVE + participles
in the Old Swedish material .......................................
Investigated texts for the older stage
(c. 1300–1560) ..........................................................
The frequency of HAVE with unaccusative in some
Old and Early Modern Swedish texts (from
Johannisson 1945:135–136, Table 2–5) .....................
The primary corpus of investigated texts for
the period of change (c. 1600–1740) ..........................
The secondary corpus of investigated texts for
the period of change (c. 1600–1740) ..........................
The frequency of BE in older Swedish (from
Johannisson 1945:139, Table 9) .................................
Variation in the frequency of BE in older Swedish
(based on the data in Johannisson 1945:135–138,
Table 2–8) ..................................................................
The frequency of BE with unaccusatives in the
primary corpus ...........................................................
The frequency of BE with unaccusatives in the
primary corpus, disregarding cases with (finite or
non-finite) auxiliary omission ....................................
The primary corpus divided into three periods ...........
113
125
125
131
131
135
137
137
152
156
236
237
246
247
248
249
255
TABLE 7.8.
TABLE 7.9.
TABLE 7.10.
TABLE 7.11.
TABLE 7.12.
TABLE 7.13.
TABLE 10.1.
TABLE 10.2.
TABLE 10.3.
The frequency of BE with inanimate and animate
subjects in the primary corpus ...................................
The frequency of BE + the verb komma ‘come’
and inanimate and animate subjects ..........................
The frequency of BE + participle with and
without particle ..........................................................
The frequency of BE + the verb komma ‘come’
with and without particle in the primary corpus .........
The frequency of BE with different kinds of events....
The frequency of BE + participle of varda ‘become’
and bliva ‘become’ .....................................................
Object–participle agreement with HAVE in the Edda
and the Grágás ..........................................................
The alternation -it/-et in older Swedish ......................
The alternation -in/-en in older Swedish ....................
256
256
259
260
262
264
387
422
422
Abbreviations
Acc.
AP
AspP
AST
C.
Comp.
CP
Dat.
DP
E
ECM
EVT
F.
Gen.
I.E.
Impf.
Inf.
M.
N.
Nom.
VP
Obj.
Perf.
Pass.
Pl.
Poss.
Pres.
Pret.
Prt.
Ptc.
R
Refl.
S
Accusative
Adjective Phrase
Aspect Phrase
Assertion time
Common gender
Comparative
Complementizer Phrase
Dative
Determiner Phrase
Event time
Exceptional case marking
Evaluation time
Feminine
Genitive
Indo-European
Imperfective
Infinitive
Masculine
Neuter
Nominative
Verb Phrase
Object form
Perfective
Passive
Plural
Possessive
Present
Preterite
Particle
en-participle
Reference time
Reflexive
Speech time
Sg.
Sup.
TP
Unacc.
Singular
Supine
Tense Phrase
Unaccusative
1
1. Introduction
It has long been established that the perfect tense with HAVE (or BE) +
perfect participle in the Germanic languages has developed from a
resultative construction with largely the same form (see e.g. Meillet
1917).1 The development is sometimes viewed as a case of grammaticalization which is well-attested among auxiliaries that take infinitival
complements (see e.g. van Gelderen 2004). The starting point is a lexical verb HAVE with a possessive meaning which takes a resultative
participial complement, as in (1:1a). In the final stage, the construction
is reanalysed as a complex tense, as in (1:1b).
(1:1)
a.
b.
Han har fönstren
tvättade.
he has the.windows clean.PTC.PL
‘He has the windows cleaned.’
Han har tvättat
fönstren.
he has clean.SUP the.windows
‘He has cleaned the windows.’
The present thesis reviews this description of the development, taking
into account a more elaborate syntax-semantics of perfect-type constructions, as well as the historical data. We are not simply dealing with
the grammaticalization of HAVE; the development is, in fact, not restricted to constructions with HAVE, but can also involve BE. Importantly, there are changes also in the properties of the participle. In the
first stage, the participle is adjectival (and passive); in the last stage it
has an active reading and is part of a periphrastic tense. In Swedish, the
perfect participle has become morphologically distinct from the past or
passive participle; the form is traditionally called the supine. Compare
1
Capitalized BE and HAVE are used to cover forms of be and have in English,
vara and ha in Swedish, sein and haben in German and so on, abstracting away from
cross-linguistic and diachronic differences in realization. Similarly, BECOME and
GET refers to the different verb forms meaning ‘become’ and ‘get’, respectively.
2
the neuter singular passive participle skrivet ‘written’ in (1:2a) to the
perfect with the supine form skrivit ‘written’ in (1:2b).2
(1:2)
a.
b.
Brevet
är skrivet
av någon
annan.
the.letter.N.SG is write.PTC.N.SG by somebody else
‘The letter has been written by somebody else.’
Hon har skrivit
brevet.
she has write.SUP the.letter
‘She has written the letter.’
The historical development does not only result in changed properties of
auxiliaries and participles, but also in a change in the temporal-aspectual
system of the Germanic languages. Gothic lacked a perfect tense, while
the Old Scandinavian languages had one. We should therefore address
the questions how the perfect tense should be understood, what it means
for a language to have or not to have a perfect tense, and what it means
to say that a tense develops. We will see that several elements contribute
to the syntax-semantics of perfect-type constructions, and may do so in
different ways in different languages and at different times. On the basis
of differences in e.g. possibilities of adverbial modification, verb types
and temporal and aspectual interpretation, I will argue that participles
have internal structure which can vary depending on participle and language, as well as over time. In this way, the present understanding of the
historical development of the perfect can be extended.
In this thesis, the focus is on the Scandinavian languages, particularly
Swedish, but comparative data is often required in the discussion. All
the Present-Day Germanic languages have developed a periphrastic perfect with HAVE or BE and a participle formed by the suffixes *-þa(I.E. *-to-) or *-ena-/*-ana- (I.E. *-e/o-no-); weak verbs form participles with *-þa- (English -ed) as in Present-Day Swedish väntad
‘expected’ and English expected, whereas strong verbs form participles
with *-ena-/*-ana- (English -en) as in skriven ‘written’ and written. The
development has several common traits in the different languages, but
there are also striking formal differences with regard to both auxiliary
and participle, as well as differences in the semantics of the perfect. For
example, not all Germanic languages have a split auxiliary system, with
2
Supine morphology is glossed SUP. Participial morphology is otherwise glossed
or with the inflectional form (e.g. N.SG). The glosses give only the necessary
morphological information; participle agreement is therefore only marked when
relevant. Forms like barnen ‘children + definite suffix’ are glossed as ‘the.children’
throughout. For examples from previous work, the glosses have sometimes been
changed to fit the present purposes better.
PTC
3
an alternation between HAVE and BE. Some languages allow so-called
positional past time adverbials (e.g. yesterday, some ten years ago) in
the present perfect, whereas other languages do not. In some languages,
the perfect can have a future reference time. In the Scandinavian
languages, the periphrastic construction with HAVE + participle has
modal uses. The analysis must allow for these differences between the
languages, while maintaining a partly unified syntax-semantics of the
perfect and the participles.
The historical change is only partly explicable in terms of syntactic
structure or as dependencies between different phenomena in the linguistic system (such as a correlation between verb movement and morphology). Looking at the differences between the Scandinavian languages and the development of Standard Swedish, it is evident that we
have to consider also the linguistic community and the actual behaviour
of the speakers at particular times. Languages do not change because the
system mechanically drifts one way or another, but because people
acquire language and speak it, and do so in different ways. The Scandinavian languages have therefore developed differently, and they have
done so through the different communities and their language use. At
the same time, also the historical study concerns the grammars of individuals, and our understanding of these grammars is therefore still of
crucial importance. Central to the historical study are questions of how
variation and shifts in the frequencies of grammatical phenomena are to
be understood and how they relate to structure and changes in structure.
The historical development is syntactic and semantic and involves
changes in the properties of lexical or functional items. In this thesis, the
discussion of change will be tied to the historical data, and to the
syntactic-semantic analysis of these data.
1.1. Aim
The general aim of this thesis is to attain a better theoretical understanding of the development of the perfect tense, particularly in Swedish. The focus is on grammatical change; I study how older constructions develop into perfects and not e.g. how present, past and perfect
tenses distribute in the usage when the perfect develops. The primary
questions are what changes and how it changes. In order to understand
the historical development, some comprehension of the syntaxsemantics of the constructions involved is clearly required. One of the
main questions explored in the thesis is therefore what characterizes a
4
perfect and how it relates syntactically and semantically to other similar
constructions involving participles. Since the aim is to understand the
development of a tense, the temporal-aspectual properties of participles
are of importance.
1.2. Terminology
The perfect is referred to as a tense and not (as in e.g. Comrie 1976) an
aspect; see chapter 3 for discussion. It includes present, past and nonfinite perfects. The perfect-type constructions include perfects and
constructions that have the same or similar morphology; they generally
involve HAVE or BE and a participle. Perfect-type constructions that
are not perfects are referred to as perfect-like constructions; these
include active and passive constructions with HAVE or BE + a stative
participle.3 For simplicity, I often refer to the participial suffixes collectively as -en, and the participles under investigation as en-participles;
the en-participles include also participles with -ed, like expected (or
Swedish väntad).
1.3. Scope and outline
An analysis of the perfect must take into account tense, aspect and the
structure of events, neither of which is fully understood, as well as the
relation between the three, which is even more intricate. As will become
evident, I take central aspects of tense, aspect and event structure to be
determined by independent syntactic principles. I assume that syntax
builds semantic structure, i.e. that semantics is read off structure.
Systematic differences in interpretation are therefore tied to differences
in structure. Although the syntactic principles are assumed to be
common to all languages, the structures of participles and perfect-type
constructions can, as we will see, vary between languages.
This thesis does not aim at a full analysis of any one of the relevant
domains. Technical detail has to give way to the more general, and the
discussion will often necessarily be kept informal. The focus is on
syntactic-semantic aspects of the change, rather than on questions of
(changes in) morpho-phonological realization. The discussion of the
3
The perfect-like constructions are often referred to as resultatives (see e.g.
Nedjalkov & Jaxontov 1988). As we will see, this is a misnomer since these constructions do not always have a resultative reading.
5
syntax-semantics of participles is mainly confined to constructions with
auxiliaries. Attributive participles and reduced relatives are not investigated systematically. Eventive passives with BECOME and GET will be
discussed only briefly. Instead, most of the discussion concerns active
participial constructions with HAVE and BE, as in (1:3), and stative
passives with HAVE and BE, as in (1:4).
(1:3)
a.
b.
(1:4)
a.
b.
Han har kommit hem
he has come home
‘He has come home.’
Han är hemkommen.
he is home.come
‘He has come home.’
Han har blommorna vattnade (av en trädgårdsmästare).
he has the.flowers watered
by a gardener
‘He has the flowers watered (by a gardener).’
Blommorna är
vattnade (av en trädgårdsmästare).
the.flowers
are watered
by a gardener
‘The flowers have been watered (by a gardener).’
The thesis contains three (partly) independent historical studies, which
focus on active participles in the complement of HAVE or BE. First, I
investigate the early occurrences of perfect-type constructions with
HAVE in some Old Germanic texts. This is the focus of chapter 4.
Secondly, since it is often assumed that older Swedish, unlike PresentDay Swedish, had a split auxiliary system (see e.g. Johannisson 1945), I
consider the use of BE + active participle in older Swedish (chapter 5)
and the subsequent loss of BE (chapter 7). It turns out that the constructions with BE should not be treated as perfects, and that we need finer
distinctions among the perfect-type constructions. The material and
principles for data collection are presented in connection with the individual studies, in chapters 4, 5 and 7, respectively.
In addition to the historical studies, I investigate a variety of presentday data. Chapter 2 introduces the basic distinctions among the enparticiples and the structure of the verb phrase. In chapter 3, I suggest an
account in which the perfect involves a biclausal structure with a nonfinite past tense, and that the semantics of the past and present perfects
depends on the combination of this non-finite tense with the semantics
of the auxiliary and a matrix tense. The perfect participle is taken to be a
tensed participle. Following Iatridou, Anagnostopoulou & Izvorski
(2001) and Pancheva (2003), the different readings of the perfect are
assumed to depend on the aspect of the participle.
6
Modern data are used not only to establish the end-point of the
change (the perfect tense), but also to clarify the analysis of the different
stages in the development. As we will see, the constructions that the
perfect has developed from are still (with some exceptions) available in
Present-Day Swedish. In chapter 6, I introduce a distinction between
different kinds of tenseless stative participles largely on the basis of
present-day examples. I show how Kratzer’s (2000) distinction between
resultant state participles and target state participles is relevant for the
analysis of the construction with BE + active participle in older Swedish. In chapter 8, I discuss the structure of the stative participles. I argue
that the participles differ with respect to the parts of the verb phrase that
they include, as well as to tense and aspect. In chapter 9, I discuss
perfect-like constructions with HAVE and argue that HAVE can take
largely the same tenseless complements as BE. I also discuss how
possessive HAVE relates to the temporal auxiliary HAVE, and to BE. In
the analysis of HAVE, I take Kayne’s (1993) account of HAVE as BE +
an abstract preposition (or prepositional determiner) as a starting point,
but suggest that while possessive HAVE involves a possessive preposition, temporal HAVE involves a temporal preposition, in languages like
Swedish and English; this accounts for the difference between the two
types of HAVE, as well as for the restricted semantics of the perfect. As
we will see, there is reason to assume that temporal HAVE does not
involve a prepositional element in languages like German.
Chapter 10 brings together the results from the previous chapters and
discusses the consequences for our understanding of the historical development of the perfect. I look closer at examples with HAVE + agreeing
participles in Old Norse and consider the question of participles and
case. In the final chapter, I briefly discuss the question of participle
morphology and summarize some of the main points of the thesis.
1.4. Historical and modern data and sources
The history of Swedish is divided into the following periods: Old
Swedish (c. 800–1500), Early Modern Swedish (c. 1500–1700) and Late
Modern Swedish (c. 1700–). In the period of Old Swedish, I include
both what is traditionally called Runic Swedish (c. 800–1225) and Old
Swedish (c. 1225–1526); the distinction between the two is based mainly on extra-linguistic or textual factors not relevant here. The period of
Modern Swedish includes Swedish from the 16th century to the presentday. In addition, I use the term older Swedish to refer to both Old
7
Swedish and Early Modern Swedish, that is, Swedish up to the 18th
century.4 Older Swedish is, however, not intended to be a precise term:
it is used as a convenient way of referring to a Swedish system that
differs from Present-Day Swedish in some relevant sense. The term
Present-Day Swedish refers to the current standard and to the language
that I have native intuitions about.5
1.4.1. Historical data
As changes in frequencies of morpho-syntactic phenomena tend to
suggest ongoing change, quantitative data from large historical corpora
are important tools in the study of a historical development. They are
also a means for investigating correlations between grammatical phenomena (as shown by Kroch 1989 among others). However, while such a
study can show how the change proceeds in a linguistic community, it
does not necessarily have much to say about how the change of the
individual’s linguistic competence comes about, and how the changes in
frequencies should be explained. In order to understand shifts in the
frequencies of a linguistic phenomenon, we have to consider finer syntactic-semantic distinctions as well as factors relating to the wider context. The investigation should be micro-comparative in the sense that it
should focus on (minimal) grammatical differences between individuals
(which have as much in common as possible). During a period of
change, the grammatical variation between individuals is expected to be
considerable; even in a more stable historical context, phenomena such
as auxiliary selection tend to vary between speakers. Not only the
frequencies, but also the factors that determine the variation, can vary.
Here, the emphasis is on the qualitative and grammatical aspects of the
historical development. For the larger historical perspective and for
pinpointing the time of change, I rely on data from previous studies,
when possible.
4
Similarly, the term older English refers to English up until around the 19th
century.
5 See e.g. Holmberg & Platzack (1995, 2005) for an introduction and discussion of
the morphosyntax of the present-day Scandinavian languages and Faarlund (2004)
for a syntax of Old Norse. I refer to Bandle et al. (2002) for a comprehensive overview of the history of the Scandinavian languages; see e.g. the paper by Ottósson on
the historical records and the paper by Delsing on the morphology of Old Swedish
and Old Danish.
8
As always in historical studies, we have to build our understanding on
a fragmentary and often disparate material, together with our theoretical
knowledge (as well as cross-linguistic data). The historical material is
selected in the light of results of previous studies and of what we
otherwise know about the historical records. It ranges over a substantial
period of time, from the oldest Germanic sources to modern times; it is
heterogeneous also with regard to text-types, and it includes several
different languages. The choice of texts is obviously more limited for
the oldest material. For Old English and Old High German, I rely on
texts with commentaries and with available concordances of the relevant
examples, and on previous work.
The texts are deliberately chosen to cover different aspects of the
development. In the Old Germanic (particularly Scandinavian) sources,
all constructions with HAVE + participle are investigated; in the Old
and Early Modern Swedish texts, the focus is instead on participles of
unaccusative verbs embedded under HAVE or BE. Auxiliary omission
and morphological passives in the perfect tense are systematically investigated in the Early Modern Swedish material. At the same time, a
number of examples of other morphological and periphrastic passives
are collected. For additional examples, I have sometimes used historical
dictionaries of Swedish (Söderwall, Schlyter and SAOB) and the
historical parts of the corpus of Icelandic at Orðabók Háskóla Íslands,
which I refer to as the FORNRIT corpus. The details of the material are
given when relevant. For the abbreviations of the texts, see the Bibliography, where the material is presented in its entirety.
1.4.2. Modern data
The historical records offer no good means of investigating differences
with regard to e.g. diagnostics for unaccusativity or passives; in these
respects, the historical records taken by themselves are simply far too
limited to give a reliable picture of the linguistic system in earlier times,
at least in a way relevant for the present study. Modern data therefore
become necessary, not only to establish the endpoint of the change, but
to give clues to the linguistic competence of e.g. speakers of Swedish in
the 17th century. The assumption is that the most general properties of
participles and verbs in the modern languages also pertain to earlier
stages of these languages – unless there is clear evidence to the contrary.
While we know that linguistic systems vary and change, we also know
that they are stable and change only slowly, and we do not expect any
9
rapid turns in the history of a language. Moreover, we can assume that
17th century Swedish, which on the surface looks very similar to Present-Day Swedish, also shares features with Present-Day Swedish on a
more abstract level, and is governed by the same general cognitive,
linguistic principles. Although this is primarily a historical study, much
of the discussion will therefore concern modern examples, and the
results will in many cases have a bearing on our understanding of the
present-day language. In the historical study, I am confined to authentic
examples and evidence from actual usage, in a fragmentary material. In
the modern data, I am generally not concerned with what contextual
factors determine the choice between different equally possible
examples but what the general semantic and syntactic properties of the
constructions are. In other words, the question is not whether one or the
other construction is preferred in a specific context, but whether an
example would be grammatical or make sense in an imaginable context.
The modern examples are largely based on my own (Swedish) intuitions and judgements from informants. To get a picture of the presentday usage, I have occasionally used Google and the tagged corpora of
Present-Day Swedish, PAROLE and SUC. For Norwegian, I have used
the Bokmål and Nynorsk parts of the Oslo corpus of written Norwegian
and the NoTa-corpus of spoken Norwegian. All authentic examples are
followed directly by a reference to the source.6
6
When a text is not paginated, I give page number within brackets. For the
examples from poetry, the reference gives song and/or line; for examples from laws,
the reference gives section and paragraph. In the references to the laws and the
Edda, I use the abbreviations given in the edition. For Gutalagen, I refer to the
number of the section given in the edition and in the electronic version of the texts.
Emended parts are given in italics; italics or bold face in the original text have not
been marked. When I give the full reference to examples taken from previous
studies, the example has been checked in the (edition of the) text.
10
2. Participles, categories and events
The development of the periphrastic perfect involves changes in the
syntax of past participles: a (passive) participle with adjectival properties is reanalysed as a perfect participle which is employed to form a
complex tense. In this chapter, some of the relevant distinctions and
problems are introduced. In section 2.2, I give an overview of the properties of the en-participles and introduce some distinctions among them.
In section 2.3, I point to questions concerning lexical categories and
category features. In the second part of the chapter, I consider the types
of intransitive verbs and introduce the verb phrase structure that will be
assumed in the following chapters.
2.1. Terminology
Following Bach (1981), I refer to both stative and non-stative predicates
as denoting eventualities. However, I use the terms eventive and event to
cover all non-stative predicates; with the terminology of Vendler (1967),
these include activities like read, accomplishments like build a house
and achievements like reach the top. The term event structure refers to
the structure of eventualities, and event time refers to the time of eventualities.
Throughout, the term passive is used informally to refer to constructions where an argument (the external argument) of the verb is demoted,
independently of whether the structure involves an implicit argument
(which typically can be realized by means of a by-phrase) or not. Adjectival participles are passive when they modify what would correspond to
an object in an active clause. Active participles do not involve a demoted argument, and, in prenominal position, they modify the DP that
corresponds to the subject of an active clause.
The term unaccusative verbs refers to the group of verbs (e.g. arrive
and wilt) which are sometimes called ergatives (see e.g. Burzio 1986);
since the latter term is associated with the ergative-absolutive distinction, it is avoided here. Verbs like sleep and work are referred to as
11
unergative, largely following standard practice. Precisely how these
groups of verbs should be distinguished will be discussed in the following. As we will see, unaccusativity and unergativity are not necessarily properties of verbs, but rather depend on the entire verb phrase.
Despite this, I often talk about unaccusative verbs, rather than unaccusative structures, for convenience. The term variable behaviour verbs is
used in the standard sense to refer to verbs that have variable unaccusative or unergative behaviour (e.g. travel and run).
One of the properties that typically distinguishes unaccusative verbs
is that they have active participles in the complement of BE and in
prenominal position; see (2:1) and (2:2) (and see further section 2.4).7
(2:1)
Barnen
är
redan hemkomna.
the.children are already home.come
‘The children have already come home.’
(2:2)
de nyligen hemkomna barnen
the recently home.come children
‘the children who recently came home’
As will become evident in the following, the construction with BE +
active participle is not a perfect in Swedish (as the English translation
might suggest), and the participle is not a perfect participle. Instead, the
active participles in the complement of BE share important properties
with passive participles of transitive verbs in examples like (2:3) and
(2:4) below.
(2:3)
Barnen
är
redan hämtade av sin
moster.
the.children are already picked.up by POSS.REFL aunt
‘The children have already been picked up by their aunt.’
(2:4)
de nyligen hämtade barnen
the recently picked.up the.children
‘the children who recently were picked up’
I refer to the group of participles that are active or passive depending on
verb type as (active or passive) past participles and avoid the standard
term passive participle. The term perfect participle is restricted to participles in perfects (including the Swedish supine). Further distinctions
among the participles will be made when relevant.
7
I translate the examples with BE + participle with English perfects throughout,
although they differ from perfects in important respects (to be specified below).
12
Like Danish and Norwegian, Swedish has three different canonical
passive constructions: periphrastic passives with BE + participle, periphrastic passives with BECOME + participle and morphological passives with the suffix -s; cf. the examples in (2:5).8
(2:5)
a.
b.
c.
Barnen
är
redan hämtade av sin
moster.
the.children are already picked.up by POSS.REFL aunt
‘The children have already been picked up by their aunt.’
Barnen
blev
hämtade av sin
moster.
the.children became picked.up by POSS.REFL aunt
‘The children were picked up by their aunt.’
Barnen
hämtades
av sin
moster.
the.children picked.up.PASS by POSS.REFL aunt
‘The children were picked up by their aunt.’
In the literature, the BE-passive is sometimes referred to as the adjectival passive, as opposed to the verbal passive with BECOME. Since
many stative passives have verbal properties, I avoid these terms. The
passive with BE is instead referred to as the stative passive, and the passive with BECOME the eventive passive. Participles in the complement
of BE are referred to as stative, and participles in the complement of
BECOME as eventive (see chapter 8, section 8.4.1). Apart from the passives with BE and BECOME, Swedish also has stative passives with
HAVE and eventive passives with GET; see (2:6). The passive construction with HAVE is discussed in chapter 4 and 9, and GET-passives
are considered in passing in chapter 9 and 10.
(2:6)
a.
b.
Hon hade fönstren
tvättade av en trevlig fönstertvättare.
she had the.windows cleaned by a nice
window.cleaner
‘She had the windows cleaned by a nice window cleaner.’
Hon fick fönstren
tvättade av en trevlig fönstertvättare.
she got the.windows cleaned by a nice
window.cleaner
‘She got the windows cleaned by a nice window cleaner.’
In Swedish, the construction with BE + past participle is not necessarily
passive, as noted. Among the perfect-like constructions with BE, I include both stative passives with BE (like (2:5a)) and the stative construction with BE + active past participle of an unaccusative verb (like
(2:1a)). The perfect-type constructions with BE include also the BE-perfects in languages like German. Similarly, the perfect-like constructions
8
In older Swedish, and in varieties of Present-Day Swedish, the auxiliary in eventive passives is often varda ‘become’ and not bliva ‘become’, as in the examples I
give here (see chapter 7 below).
13
with HAVE include passives with HAVE (like (2:6a)), but not perfects,
whereas also perfects are included among the perfect-type constructions.
2.2. Participles
It is well known that en-participles sometimes have verbal properties,
but at other times appear to be adjectives. Like verbs, participles can
take nominal complements, as in (2:7a), or adjectival complements, as
in (2:7b).9 They largely have the distribution of adjectives and can occur
in prenominal position and be coordinated with adjectives, as in (2:8)
and (2:9). The passive auxiliaries BE and BECOME can also take AP
complements; cf. (2:10).
(2:7)
a.
b.
Alexander blev
erbjuden den lyra som tillhört
Paris.
Alexander became offered the lyre that belonged
Paris
‘Alexander was offered the lyre that [had] belonged to Paris.’
(PAROLE)
Jag blev
slagen medvetslös av ett gäng killar.
I
became beaten unconscious by a gang guys
‘I was beaten unconscious by a gang of guys.’
(PAROLE)
(2:8)
en nyanländ
gäst
a
new.arrived guest
‘a recently arrived guest’
(2:9)
Han är nyklippt och alldeles korthårig.
he is new.cut
and quite
short.haired
‘His hair has recently been cut and is quite short.’
(2:10)
a.
b.
Han var glad.
he was happy
Han blev
glad.
he became happy
‘He was happy.’
Not all participles are equally adjectival. The verbal semantics of participles can be more or less salient and is sometimes completely absent
(cf. SAG 1999, 2:583). In the following, I consider some of the diagnostics that have been proposed in the literature to distinguish verbal
9
In Present-Day Swedish, finite forms of temporal HAVE can be omitted in subordinate clauses, as in (2:7a). I return to this in chapter 7 and 9.
14
from adjectival participles; largely the same tests can be applied in
Swedish as in English (see e.g. Wasow 1977, Levin & Rappaport 1986,
Anagnostopoulou 2003a and, for Swedish, Lindroth 1906, Platzack
1980, Sundman 1987, Malmgren 1990, Hedlund 1992). I distinguish one
group of participial forms as adjectival and exclude them from the investigation. We will see that the participles which I refer to as past participles have both adjectival and verbal properties. Hence, a study of
participles will raise questions relating to the criteria for identifying
categories (i.e., what is meant by ‘verbal’ and ‘adjectival’); these will be
specified in section 2.3 below.10
2.2.1. Adjectival participles
In his investigation of the differences between verbal and adjectival
participles in English, Wasow (1977) uses participles of double object
verbs as examples of unambiguously verbal participles, since these take
DP complements, unlike adjectives. Among other things, passives of
ditransitives do not allow degree modifiers like very, but allow modification by (very) much; see (2:11). In this respect they behave like verbs
and not like adjectives; cf. (2:12a) which disallows very without much,
and (2:12b) which allows very but not much.
John was very *(?much) taught the value of a dollar.
(Wasow 1977:344)
(2:11)
(2:12)
a.
b.
John very *(much) respects your family.
John is very (*much) fond of your family.
(Wasow 1977:340)
Swedish participles of ditransitive verbs behave in the same way with
respect to degree modifiers like ganska ‘pretty’; cf. (2:13) and (2:14).11
10
SAG (1999) does not categorize participles as verbs or adjectives, but places
them with present participles in a separate category.
11 The participle garanterad ‘guaranteed’ allows modification by rätt ‘right,
rather’. Other degree modifiers (e.g. ganska ‘pretty, rather’) are, on the other hand,
not allowed; see (i). The verb garantera ‘guarantee’ has a stative reading.
(i)
Peter är *ganska/rätt garanterad
en lysande framtid.
Peter is pretty/rather guaranteed a bright future
‘Peter is *pretty/rather guaranteed to have a bright future.’
15
(2:13)
a.
b.
(2:14)
a.
b.
Peter är
(*ganska) erbjuden ett jobb.
Peter is
pretty
offered
a
job
‘Peter has been (*pretty) offered a job.’
Peter är
(*ganska) berövad sitt
jobb.
Peter is
pretty
deprived POSS.REFL job
‘Peter has been (*pretty) deprived of his job.’
Peter respekterar (*ganska) din familj.
Peter respects pretty
your family
‘Peter (*pretty) respects your family.’
Peter är ganska respektabel.
Peter is pretty respectable
’Peter is pretty respectable.’
The restriction is not limited to participles of ditransitive verbs. Also
participles of intransitive or monotransitive verbs often disallow degree
modifiers; cf. (2:15).
(2:15)
a.
b.
Boken
är (*ganska) skriven.
the.book is pretty
written
‘The book has been (*pretty) written.’
Han är (*ganska) hemkommen.
he is pretty
home.come
‘He has (*pretty) come home.’
Other participial forms allow modification by ganska; consider the examples in (2:16) which involve adjectival participles.
(2:16)
a.
b.
c.
Hon är ganska begåvad.
she is pretty gifted
’She is pretty gifted.’
Hon är ganska utmattad.
she is pretty exhausted
‘She is pretty exhausted.’
Det är ganska utplockat i affären.
it
is pretty out.picked in the.store
‘There is rather little to choose from in the store.’
Wasow (1977) further notes that passives of double object verbs cannot
occur as complements of verbs that select only for APs. In the complement of the verb seem, a participle like given is not possible unless the
passive auxiliary BE is also included; cf. (2:17a) which is ungrammatical, and (2:17b) which is well-formed. With adjectives there is no such
restriction; in (2:18), to be is optional.
16
(2:17)
a. * John seems given first prize every time we have a contest.
b. John seems to be given first prize every time we have a contest.
(Wasow 1977:343)
John seems (to be) happy.
(2:18)
In Swedish, verbs like spela ‘act’ and låta ‘sound’, which take AP complements, are ungrammatical with a passive of a ditransitive verb; see
(2:19) and (2:20).
(2:19)
(2:20)
a.
Han spelar tokig.
he acts
crazy
‘He acts crazy.’
b. * Han spelar erbjuden en
he acts
offered a
Han låter
tokig.
he sounds crazy
‘He sounds crazy.’
b. * Han låter
erbjuden en
he sounds offered a
medalj.
medal
a.
medalj.
medal
Again, the restriction is not constrained to participles of ditransitive
verbs; examples like those in (2:21) are also ungrammatical.
(2:21)
a. * Han spelar hemkommen från en resa till Afrika.
he plays home.come from a
trip to
Africa
Intended: ‘He plays someone who has recently come home from a
trip to Africa.’
b. * Den låter
skriven av Strindberg.
it
sounds written by Strindberg
Intended: ‘It sounds as if it was written by Strindberg.’
However, the restriction does not apply to all participial forms; cf. the
examples in (2:22) which, with the terminology of Wasow (1977),
involve adjectival participles.
(2:22)
a.
b.
Han spelar förälskad.
he acts
fallen.in.love
‘He acts in love.’
Han låter
berömd.
he sounds known
‘He sounds famous.’
The participles förälskad ‘in love’ and berömd ‘known, famous’ can
also be modified by degree modifiers; see (2:23) and cf. (2:16) above.
17
(2:23)
a.
b.
Han är ganska förälskad.
he is pretty fallen.in.love
‘He is pretty in love.’
Han är ganska berömd.
he is pretty known
‘He is pretty famous.’
Furthermore, there is no verb förälska of which the participle förälskad
is formed, and berömd does not have a reading corresponding to that of
the verb berömma ‘praise, commend’ (see further e.g. Sundman
1987:398 and SAG 1999, 2:591ff.).
There is sometimes a morphological distinction between verbal and
adjectival participial forms in the Scandinavian languages, as in English;
see the Swedish examples in (2:24) (and cf. Embick 2004a for English).
The verbal forms öppnad ‘opened’, ruttnad ‘rotted’ etc. do generally not
allow degree modifiers: cf. (2:25).
(2:24)
a.
b.
(2:25)
a.
b.
Han är ganska öppen.
he is pretty open
’He is pretty frank.’
Detta är ganska ruttet.
this
is pretty rotten
‘This is pretty rotten.’
Fönstret
är (*ganska) öppnat.
the.window is pretty
opened
‘The window is (*pretty) opened.’
de (??ganska) ruttnade bananerna
the pretty
rotted
the.bananas
‘the (??pretty) rotted bananas’
In Danish, adjectival participles tend to have the suffix -nt, rather than
-t; cf. the verbal participle slebet ‘sharpened’ in (2:26a) to the adjectival
participle slebent ‘sharp’ in (2:26b).
(2:26)
a.
b.
Kniven/Sværdet
er (blevet) slebet.
the.knife/the.sword is become sharpened
‘The knife/sword has been sharpened.’
Hans væsen er slebent.
his being is sharpened
‘He is sharp.’
(Diderichsen 1944:263)
The same distinction can be found in Norwegian Bokmål; see (2:27).
18
(2:27)
a.
b.
ett påtvunget løfte
a
forced
promise
‘a forced promise’
et
utvungent vesen
an un.forced being
‘a relaxed character’
(Faarlund et al. 1997:378).
So-called voice reversals are sometimes possible with adjectival participles. This is the case with participles like drucken ‘drunk’ both in
Swedish and English; the adjectival participle in (2:28) modifies what
would be the subject of the verb dricka ‘drink’.
Hon är ganska drucken.
she is pretty drunk
‘She is pretty drunk.’
(2:28)
It is often the case that the properties and interpretation of adjectival
participles cannot be predicted from the properties of the corresponding
verb, and, as we have seen, there might not even be a corresponding
verb. Since the development of the perfect is expected to be tied to
participles with some verbal properties, adjectival participles are not included among the past participles that are studied here. Instead, the
focus is on the verbal properties of past participles and the way they
relate to type of verb and to tense and aspect. As we will see, when the
adjectival participles are disregarded, it is often predictable whether a
participle has an active or a passive reading in the complement of BE
(and if they are at all possible in the complement of BE).
There is one group of verbs which appears to form adjectival participles systematically, or where it is generally not possible to distinguish
the adjectival participle from the verbal, namely stative verbs like känna
‘know’ and tycka om ‘like’; see the examples in (2:29).
(2:29)
a.
b.
Hon är ganska känd.
she is pretty known
‘She is pretty famous.’
Hon är ganska omtyckt.
she is pretty liked
‘She is pretty liked.’
I will have little to say about the structure of participles of stative verbs
(and about the structure of stative verbs in general).
19
2.2.2. Past participles
In Swedish, past participles are inflected for number and, in the singular,
also for gender; see (2:30).12 In this respect, they behave just like adjectives; cf. the adjectives in (2:31).
(2:30)
a.
b.
c.
d.
(2:31)
a.
b.
c.
Brevet
var redan *skriven/skrivet.
the.letter.N.SG was already written.C.SG/written.N.SG
‘The letter had already been written.’
Artikeln
var redan skriven/*skrivet.
the.paper.C.SG was already written.C.SG/written.N.SG
‘The paper had already been written.’
Alla artiklar
var redan skrivna/*skriven/*skrivet.
all papers.PL were already written.PL/ written.C.SG/written.N.SG
‘All papers had been written.’
De blev
tilldelade/*tilldelat
medaljer av kungen.
they became awarded.PL/awarded.N.SG medals by the.king
‘They were awarded medals by the king.’
Brevet
var *fin/fint.
the.letter.N.SG was nice.C.SG/nice.N.SG
‘The letter looked nice.’
Boken
var fin/*fint.
the.book.C.SG
was nice.C.SG/nice.N.SG
‘The book looked nice.’
De var fina/*fin/*fint.
they were nice.PL/ nice.C.SG/nice.N.SG
‘They looked nice.’
Agreement is optional with predicative participles in Danish; see (2:32).
The neuter singular form is generalized also with attributive participles,
and inflection is generally restricted to number (Christensen & Christensen 2005:105f.); see (2:33).
(2:32)
a.
b.
12
Glassene
er
vaskede/vasket.
the.glasses are washed.PL/washed.N.SG
‘The glasses are washed.’
Strømperne er
stoppede/stoppet.
the.socks
are darned.PL/darned.N.SG
‘The socks are darned.’
(Christensen & Christensen 2005:106)
Apart from the distinction between subject and object forms of personal
pronouns, Present-Day Swedish lacks case morphology, just like English. In Old
Swedish, as in Icelandic, past participles are inflected also for case.
20
(2:33)
a.
b.
en
skrevet
seddel
a.C.SG written.N.SG note.C.SG
‘a written note’
en
bundet
hund
a.C.SG tied.N.SG dog.C.SG
‘a tied dog’
(Christensen & Christensen 2005:106)
In Norwegian, there is considerable variation with regard to participle
inflection. In Bokmål, not all past participles are inflected; consider the
examples in (2:34) (and see Faarlund, Lie & Vannebo 1997:518ff.).
(2:34)
a.
b.
Cellene
er utstyrt
med både dusj
og fjernsyn.
the.cells are equipped.N.SG with both shower and TV
‘The cells are equipped with both shower and TV.’
(BOKMÅL)
35-40 firma
er
plukket
ut
35-40 companies are picked.N.SG out
‘35–40 companies have been picked out’
(BOKMÅL)
Adjectival forms like åpen ‘open’ are in general obligatorily inflected in
Bokmål; cf. the inflected forms of åpen ‘open’ in (2:35) with the nonagreeing verbal form åpnet ‘opened’ in (2:36) (and see Faarlund et al.
1997:764–773ff.).
(2:35)
a.
b.
c.
(2:36)
a.
b.
c.
Vårt system
er *åpen/åpent.
our system.N.SG is open.C.SG/open.N.SG
‘Our system is open.’
Den
er ikke åpen/*åpent.
it.C.SG is not open.C.SG/open.N.SG
‘It is not open.’
Utstillingene
vil være åpne/*åpent
i
the.exhibitions will be open.PL/open.N.SG in
‘The exhibitions will be open next week.’
Vårt system
er åpnet.
our system.N.SG is opened.N.SG
‘Our system has been opened.’
Den
er ikke åpnet.
it.C.SG is not opened.N.SG
‘It has not been opened.’
De
er
åpnet.
they.PL are opened.N.SG
‘They have been opened.’
neste uke.
next week
21
Platzack (1980) assumes that all passive participles are adjectives in
Swedish, but that verbal participles include the semantic representation
of the related verb in their semantic representation, while adjectival participles do not: “The crucial difference seems to be that the past participle focuses on the act referred to by the verb, whereas the adjective
just denotes a state of affairs” (1980:76). To Platzack, the category
‘adjective’ is purely formal, and an adjective can therefore have verbal
semantics. On this view, the syntactic restrictions on e.g. participles of
ditransitive verbs noted above are still unexplained.
There are also further differences between past participles and adjectives, which mainly relate to argument structure (or event structure). As
pointed out by Emonds (2006:27), participles take the same range of
complements as verbs, and the obligatory arguments of participles are
generally predictable from the argument structure of the verb. As we
have already seen, participles can take DP or AP complements.13
Adjectives can sometimes take by-phrases that express a Cause, but
they can never be modified by agentive by-phrases as (many) passives
can; cf. (2:37a) and (2:37b) (where Peter is interpreted as Agent).
(2:37)
a.
b.
Hon blev
uppiggad av Peter.
she became up.cheered by Peter
‘She was cheered up by Peter.’
Hon blev
glad av det fina vädret/??av Peter.
she became happy by the good weather/by Peter
‘She got happy from the good weather/??by Peter.’
Agent-oriented adverbials like avsiktligt ‘intentionally’ are possible both
with passive past participles and with adjectives, but with different
readings: in the passive in (2:38a), the primary reading is that the intentions are associated with the Agent of the participial event; in (2:38b)
this reading is unavailable, and the adverbial is necessarily associated
13
There are a few adjectives that take DP complements in Swedish. Some of these
may also take a PP complement; cf. (i).
(i) a.
b.
Det är mig främmande.
it
is me foreign
Det är främmande för mig.
it
is foreign
for me
‘It is foreign to me.’
Since the complementation pattern of a past participle is predictable from the argument structure of the participial verb, it should preferably be derived in the same
way. I will not discuss the complementation of adjectives.
22
with the clause subject. An inanimate subject makes adverbials like
avsiktligt ‘intentionally’ semantically awkward with adjectives, but not
with past participles; cf. (2:39a) and (2:39b).14
(2:38)
a.
b.
(2:39)
Hon i blev
avsiktligt?i/j lugnad av Peter j.
she became intentionally calmed by Peter
‘She was intentionally calmed by Peter.’
Hon i blev
avsiktligti/*j lugn
(??av Peter j).
she became intentionally calm
by Peter
‘She intentionally got calm (??by Peter) .’
a.
Båten
blev
avsiktligt
sänkt (av Peter).
the.boat became intentionally sunk
by Peter
‘The boat was intentionally sunk (by Peter).’
b. # Båten blev
avsiktligt
blöt.
the.boat became intentionally wet
In the present context, it is particularly important that participles, but not
adjectives, can include an eventive (and aspectual) component, i.e. they
can express a transition or process. Many participles can therefore occur
with an adverb like nyss ‘recently’ and present tense of BE (see Lindroth 1906:23, Platzack 1980:57); cf. the past participle in (2:40a) with
the adjectival participle in (2:40b) and the simple adjective (2:40c).
(2:40)
a.
b.
c.
Fönstret
är nyss
öppnat.
the.window is recently opened
‘The window has recently been opened.’
Fönstret
är (*nyss) öppet.
the.window is recently open
‘The window is (*recently) open.’
Sara är (*nyss) glad.
Sara is recently happy
‘Sara is (*recently) happy.’
For nyss to be possible with present tense BE + participle, it is not only
necessary that the participle expresses an event, but also that this event
lies before the time set by the matrix tense (i.e. the present tense). In
other words, participles like that in (2:40a) convey anteriority in some
sense. For the development of the perfect, this is crucial. In the following chapters, I argue that the emergence of the perfect is to be understood as a reinterpretation of a construction with tenseless participles
14
I use # to mark an example as semantically infelicitous, as opposed to * (and ?,
and ?*) which marks ungrammaticality; the distinction is, however, sometimes
difficult, if not impossible, to make.
??
23
that conveys anteriority as a construction with a perfect participle that
has a past tense value. As we will see in chapter 6 and 8, there are past
participles that do not convey anteriority, and some past participles lack
event implications altogether.
To account for the verbal argument structure, we could assume that a
participle which shows verbal properties embeds (parts of) a verb
phrase. In this line, Josefsson (1998) suggests that the structure of verbal
participles contains a verbalizer (v), while the structure of adjectival
participles does not. The verbal argument structure, as well as the eventive semantics, is thus captured syntactically. In chapter 8, I develop an
account of the structures of past participles which accounts for the different possibilities of adverbial modification. Like Josefsson, I assume
that past participles include verbal structure, but my account also differs
from Josefsson’s analysis, partly because I assume a somewhat more
fine-grained structure of verbs and more fine-grained distinctions among
the participles.
Before we turn to perfect participles, a few words on the prefix o‘un-’ are in place, since it has often been used to distinguish adjectival
from verbal participles (cf. Wasow 1977 and references cited there).
One reason for this is that DP complements are not grammatical with
participles that are negated by o-; cf. (2:41) and (2:42).15
(2:41)
a.
b.
(2:42)
Hon skrev (honom) ett brev.
she wrote him
a
letter
‘She wrote (him) a letter.’
Brevet
är skrivet ?(till) honom.
the.letter is written to
him
‘The letter has been written to him.’
a.
Brevet
är oskrivet (*honom).
the.letter is unwritten him
‘The letter is unwritten (*him).’
b. * Han är oskriven brevet
he is unwritten the.letter
Note, however, that not only DP complements are impossible, but also
PP complements; cf. (2:43).
(2:43)
15
Brevet
förblev
oskrivet
(*till honom).
the.letter remained unwritten to
him
‘The letter remained unwritten (*to him).’
I am grateful to Sven-Göran Malmgren for pointing out these examples to me.
24
The group of participles that allow negation by o- does not coincide
with the participles that allow degree modifiers. The participle skriven
‘written’ is, for example compatible with the former but not with the
latter; see (2:44). As we will see in chapter 8, participles of verbs like
skriva ‘write’ always have event implications, and in this sense, they are
verbal.
(2:44)
a.
Artikeln är (*ganska) skriven.
the.paper is pretty
written
‘The paper has been (*pretty) written.’
Artikeln är (*ganska) oskriven.
the.paper is pretty
unwritten
‘The paper is (*pretty) unwritten.’
b.
To complicate matters, degree modifiers are sometimes possible only in
the presence of negation by o-; cf. (2:45a), which is degraded with ganska ‘pretty’ (for some speakers), to (2:45b), which is not.
(2:45)
Tröjan
är (??ganska) använd.
the.sweater is pretty
used
‘The sweater has been (??pretty) used.’
Tröjan
är ganska oanvänd.
the.sweater is pretty unused
‘The sweater has not been used much.’
a.
b.
Adjectives do not systematically allow prefixation by o-. Moreover, in
Standard Swedish, o- is often better with verbal forms like öppnad
‘opened’ than with adjectival forms öppen; cf. (2:46a) and (2:46b). This
is true also for English; cf. *unopen and unopened (and see Embick
2004a:359).
(2:46)
a.
b.
?
Dörren
är oöppen.
the.door is unopen
‘The door is not open.’
Dörren
är oöppnad.
the.door is unopened
‘The door is unopened.’
Since the syntax of o- is unclear, and since it is difficult to know what it
tests for, I will not use negation by o- as a diagnostic for distinguishing
between different participles.
25
2.2.3. Perfect participles and the supine
In the influential analysis of verbal passives by Baker, Johnson &
Roberts (1989), the participial suffix -en is assumed to be the external
argument of the participial verb and to carry a theta role (like Agent or
Cause). The structure of perfect participles clearly has to be analysed
differently. In perfects, the participle has an active reading (disregarding
the possibility of morphological passives); see (2:47).
Lisa har nyss
öppnat fönstret.
Lisa has recently opened the.window
‘Lisa has recently opened the window.’
(2:47)
It has been suggested that the auxiliary HAVE restores the external
argument (as in e.g. Hoekstra 1984:281ff.), but this can obviously not
account for verbs that do not have an external argument.16 Throughout
the Indo-European languages, unaccusative verbs like arrive form active
participles independently of which auxiliary is used, and also in the
absence of an auxiliary; see the examples in (2:48) below.
(2:48)
a.
b.
c.
en nyligen anländ deltagare
a
recently arrived participant
‘a recently arrived participant’
Samtliga deltagare
är
redan anlända.
all
participants are already arrived
‘All participants have already arrived.’
Deltagarna
har redan anlänt.
the.participants have already arrived
‘The participants have already arrived.’
If we assume that the participial suffix absorbs or carries a theta role in
passives and that HAVE can restore this theta role, we would still have
to conclude that some active participles are accidentally homonymous
with passives (with shared allomorphy), or at least that the suffix -en has
more than one function, and the function would partly be predictable
from the participial verb.
Independently of verb type, there are differences between (passive or
active) past participles and perfect participles which cannot depend
exclusively on HAVE. In Swedish, the two can involve different suffix16
Hoekstra (2000) suggests that the notion of transitivity is derivative, and that
HAVE offers one way of introducing an external argument. In Swedish, it is clear
that the external argument is introduced in the verb phrase embedded under HAVE;
among other things, the supine form can passivize (see below).
26
es; strong verbs form perfect participles that are morphologically
distinct from the neuter singular of past participles; the form is traditionally called the supine (Swed. supinum).17 Compare the past participle in
(2:49a) with the active participle in (2:49b) and the supine in (2:49c).
(2:49)
a.
b.
c.
Boken
är skriven/*skrivet.
the.book.C.SG. is write.PTC.C.SG/ write.PTC.N.SG
‘The book has been written.’
Det blev
inte skrivet
någon bok.
there became not write.PTC.N.SG any
book.C.SG.
‘No book was written.’
Hon har skrivit
en bok.
she has write.SUP a book.C.SG.
Also for weak verbs, there can be a morphological distinction between
past participle and supine, apart from the fact that the former has adjectival inflection while the latter does not. A post-vocalic final -t of the
supine can be dropped in some varieties of spoken Swedish (including
my own); this is not possible in passives; cf. (2:50a) and (2:50b).
(2:50)
a.
b.
Hon har målat/måla huset.
she has painted
the.house
‘She has painted the house.’
Huset
blev
målat/*måla.
the.house became painted
‘The house was painted.’
In Swedish descriptive grammars, the supine is generally not treated as a
participial form but as a non-finite verb form. Like finite verbs and
infinitivals, but unlike past participles, the supine can take passive morphology; cf. the perfects in (2:51) with the participles in (2:52) and the
verbs in (2:53).
(2:51)
(2:52)
17
Huset
har målats
av en noggrann målare.
the.house has paint.SUP.PASS by a careful
painter
‘The house has been painted by a careful painter.’
a. * Huset
är målats.
the.house is paint.PTC.PASS
b. * Det är målats
ett hus.
there is paint.PTC.PASS a house
Some varieties of Swedish do not make the distinction, but Standard Swedish
does, as do e.g. the varieties spoken in the central parts of Sweden (Stockholm, Uppsala), including my own.
27
(2:53)
a.
b.
Huset
målades
av
en noggrann målare.
the.house paint.PAST.PASS by
a
careful
painter
‘The house was painted by a careful painter.’
Huset
ska målas
av en noggrann målare.
the.house will paint.INF.PASS by a
careful
painter
‘The house will be painted by a careful painter.’
While past participles incorporate particles, finite verbs and infinitives
do not; see the passives in (2:54) and the active examples in (2:55) and
(2:56).18
(2:54)
a.
Kontraktet
är påskrivet.
the.contract is on.written
‘The contract is signed.’
b. * Kontraktet
är skrivet på.
the.contract is written on
(2:55)
a. * Frida påskrev
kontraktet.
Frida on.wrote the.contract
b. Frida skrev på kontraktet.
Frida wrote on the.contract
‘Frida signed the contract.’
(2:56)
a. * Frida ska påskriva kontraktet.
Frida will on.write the.contract
b. Frida ska skriva på kontraktet.
Frida will write on the.contract
‘Frida will sign the contract.’
Again, the supine patterns with other verbs and not with past participles;
cf. the perfects in (2:57).19
18
The examples involve the verb-particle complex skriva på ‘sign’; readings
where på is a locative preposition meaning ‘on’ are disregarded.
19 There are a few cases where a particle optionally can incorporate also into a
finite verb, infinitive or perfect participle; see (i). With past participles, incorporation is always obligatory; cf. (ii).
(i) a. Han nedtecknar/tecknar ned uppgifterna.
he
down.writes/writes down the.information
‘He writes down the information.’
b. Han har nedtecknat/tecknat ned
he
has down.written/written down
‘He has written down the information.’
uppgifterna.
the.information
28
(2:57)
a. * Frida har påskrivit kontraktet.
Frida has on.written the.contract
b. Frida har skrivit på kontraktet.
Frida has written on the.contract
‘Frida has signed the contract.’
Platzack (1980) suggests that the differences between passive participles
and the supine can be accounted for if we assume that the former are
adjectives whereas the latter is a verb. Lie (1994) argues that the same
distinction between passive participles (which are adjectives) and perfect participles (which are verbs) holds for Norwegian. Since the distinction is not morphologically realized, it is not acknowledged by
traditional grammars. Among other things, Lie notes that, like the
Swedish supine, perfect participles cannot incorporate particles in Norwegian; see (2:58). As we will see in chapter 10, also certain Norwegian
dialects make a morphological distinction between perfect participle and
past participle.
(2:58)
a. * De har bortreist.
they have away.travelled
b. De har reist
bort.
they have travelled away
‘They have gone away.’
(Lie 1994:251)
With regard to past participles, there are differences between Swedish
and Norwegian. As we have seen, Swedish past participles necessarily
incorporate particles. With Norwegain past participles, incorporation is
not obligatory; see (2:59) below. As noted in connection to (2:34)
above, past participles are not (obligatorily) inflected in Bokmål. Adjectival forms that are inflected necessarily incorporate particles; cf. (2:60).
(2:59)
a.
b.
(ii)
De er
reist
bort.
they are travelled away
De er
bortreist.
they are away.travelled
‘They are away.’
(Lie 1994:251)
Uppgifterna
är nedtecknade/*tecknade ned.
the.information is down.written/written down
‘The information has been written down.’
29
(2:60)
a.
b.
De har blitt nedgravd/gravd ned
av Frida.
they have been down.buried/buried down by Frida
‘They have been buried by Frida.’
Det er en ganske nedgravd/*gravd ned
hemmelighet.
that is a
pretty down.buried/buried down secret
‘It is a pretty well-kept secret.’
Hence, Norwegian past participles appear to have more verbal properties, or less adjectival properties, than Swedish participles do, since they
often lack adjectival inflection, and since they do not require that particles incorporate. The difference between past and perfect participles in
Norwegian can therefore hardly be fully accounted for by the assumption that the former are adjectives and the latter verbs. More generally,
participles pose a challenge to a simple one-way distinction between
adjective and verb.
2.2.4. Summary
Without going into too much detail, I have distinguished between three
different kinds of en-participles. First, there is a group of adjectival participles (including forms like öppen ‘open’) which typically allow
degree modifiers and which occur in the complement of verbs like spela
‘act’ and låta ‘sound’. Adjectival participles are generally inflected in
both Norwegian and Swedish, and they incorporate particles in both
languages.
Secondly, there is a group of participles which are inflected in Swedish, but not necessarily in Norwegian Bokmål, and which incorporate
particles in Swedish but not necessarily in Bokmål. The participles in
this group have verbal argument structure, and at least some of them
have event implications. I refer to these participles as past participles.
Past participles of unaccusative verbs are active, whereas past participles
of transitive verbs have passive readings. These are the participles that
form stative and eventive passives with BE and BECOME (or with
HAVE and GET).
Finally, the third type of participle is the perfect participle. In the
following, I will assume that the Swedish supine and the Norwegian
participle used in the perfect tense are both perfect participles. The perfect participle does not have adjectival inflection in any of the Scandinavian languages, and it generally does not incorporate particles.
Exactly how perfect participles should be understood depends on how
the perfect is analysed; this is the topic of chapter 3. The morphological
30
distinction between past participle and supine is discussed at more
length in chapter 10, where I also consider historical data.
In the following chapters, the difference between past and perfect
participles will be investigated further, and further distinctions will be
introduced. An analysis of participles has to account for the differences
among them, while, if possible, maintaining some similarity between
them which allows us to explain the homonymy as something other than
an accident; I return to this problem in chapter 11.
Two questions underlie much of the discussion of the different participles. First, since past participles have verbal argument structure and an
active or passive reading depending on verb type, an explicit account of
verb phrase structure is called for. In section 2.4, I introduce the verb
phrase structure that will be assumed in the following. In chapter 7 and
8, much of the focus is on verb phrase structure, and on the way the
properties of the participles can be predicted from the structure of the
verb.
The second, more fundamental, question concerns category membership; there is little point in arguing that participles are (or are not)
adjectives, unless we have some idea what it means for something to be
an adjective. The answer clearly depends on how we understand the
division between lexicon, syntax and semantics.
2.3. Questions of syntactic category
According to Platzack (1980), both adjectival participles and past participles (verbal passives) are adjectives in Swedish, formed in the lexicon
and related to the verb by a redundancy rule (cf. e.g. Jackendoff 1972).
Platzack concludes that the lexicon should “contain at least two entries
for each verb, one for the finite forms and the supine, another for the
past participle” (1980:48). In this kind of approach, the lexicon is an
ordered list of entries, with its own operations and rules (see e.g. Lieber
1980, Bresnan 1982). In the analysis of the passive by Baker et al.
(1989), the division of labour between syntax and the lexicon has shifted
somewhat and the verbal passive participle is syntactically derived: the
suffix -en is assumed to be generated under Infl and then lowered to V.
In this way, inflectional and derivational material plays a direct role in
the syntactic derivation (though the syntactic suffix -en should obviously not be confused with its particular phonological expression).
Lexical processes play a smaller part in their discussion. The adjectival
31
participle is, however, taken to be formed in the lexicon, and some
operations specific to the lexicon still have to be assumed.20
A general aim of the minimalist program is to reduce the languagespecific principles and redundancy in the linguistic system to a bare
minimum.21 The assumption is that the human linguistic competence –
and cognition more generally – only includes one generative device, and
that its properties can (to a large extent) be explained with reference to
requirements imposed by the conceptual-interpretive and sensory-motor
systems (e.g. on interpretability and linearization; see e.g. Chomsky
1995, 2007). Against this background, Josefsson (1998) proposes a
purely syntactic account of participle formation (cf. also Abney 1987).
While Bresnan (1982) argues that passive participles would not undergo
lexical word-formation processes such as compounding if they were
derived in syntax, Josefsson, who works in the framework of Distributed
Morphology (see e.g. Halle & Marantz 1993 and Harley & Noyer 1999),
assumes that also word-formation is syntactic. As we will see below, a
syntactic account allows us to explain the partly different and partly
similar syntactic behaviour of the different kinds of participles without
adding any elements or processes that are not motivated also by e.g.
clause structure and verb phrase structure, and without having to resort
to lexical operations. This kind of framework (with a high level of
abstraction and claim of generality) has some success in the analysis of
the general and basic properties of perfects and participles, while still
allowing for variation in the specific composition of participles in individual languages.
In Distributed Morphology, a lexical root does not carry category
features (i.e., it lacks the feature bundle that is commonly summarized
as category), but obtains its category membership from the inflectional
or derivational material it merges with. To Josefsson (1998), an adjective is therefore a root (that typically denotes a property) merged with
adjectival inflection, while a verb is a root (typically denoting an activity) merged with verbal inflection. Building on Jackendoff (1985),
Josefsson suggests that verbal inflection can superimpose an eventive
reading on an otherwise stative root, while adjectival inflection can
superimpose a property reading.
As Platzack (2006a:2) notes, the same root can appear in different
configurations and, apparently, belong to different categories. He gives
20
See Emonds 2006 for a critical review of the treatment of the passive in the
history of generative grammar.
21 For an introduction to minimalist syntax, see e.g. Hornstein, Nunes & Grohmann (2005).
32
examples of the root √up appearing as a preposition, an adjective, a
noun and a verb; see (2:61).22
(2:61)
a.
b.
c.
d.
There is a pub up the road.
an up tendency
He is on the up.
And he ups and says…
(Platzack 2006a:2)
By assuming that the difference between the various instances of up is
syntactic and principled and that the lexical item is the same, the analysis gains in generality. This framework has a higher claim of universality and is far more abstract than the system assumed by Platzack (1980),
where rules are tied to items in a Swedish lexicon. The syntactic principles are neither considered construction specific, nor specific to a particular language; the syntactic categories are universal and in principle
independent of particular lexical (or conceptual) items.
While Platzack (1980) assumes that participles can be adjectives
syntactically, but still have verbal semantics, Josefsson (1998) proposes
that verbal semantics are due to an embedded verbal head (v) in the
structures. If v is missing, so is the verbal semantics. Similarly, lexical
items (like up) which do not (necessarily) carry eventive semantics in
the lexicon can get an eventive interpretation in the right syntactic context. In this way, the systematic and generalizable part of what is traditionally referred to as lexical semantics is syntactically derived, and
more of the computational load is carried by functional as opposed to
lexical elements (cf. e.g. Hale & Keyser 1993a, 2002, Borer 2005a, b
and Åfarli 2007).
Now, roots as flexible as √up are quite rare. Most lexical elements are
more restricted as to what structures they can appear in. For instance, the
root √förstör ‘destroy’ requires a transitive structure; see (2:62).
(2:62)
22
a. * Staden förstörde.
the.city destroyed
b. De förstörde staden.
they destroyed the.city
‘They destroyed the city.’
(cf. Marantz 1998)
I follow the standard practise in Distributed Morphology and mark the root √
(from Pesetsky 1995).
33
The root √smält ‘melt’, on the other hand, is possible in both intransitive
and transitive (causative) structures; see (2:63). For e.g. Marantz (1998),
this difference between √förstör and √smält is a consequence of the
meaning of the roots (i.e., what the speaker knows about what it is to
destroy or to melt).
(2:63)
a.
b.
Isen
smälte.
the.ice melted
‘The ice melted.’
Frida smälte isen.
Frida melted the.ice
‘Frida melted the ice.’
If the generalizations that category features and other lexical specifications of syntactically relevant information have been used to capture
always can be shown to be essentially semantically motivated, these
lexical specifications can be dispensed with and semantics can be
invoked directly. This is the goal of much current work on argument
structure. One challenge is to rule out examples like (2:64) below; there
is no apparent semantic reason why a reading like ‘Frida makes the boat
arrive to the wharf’ should be excluded, nor is there a form meaning
‘make arrive’ that blocks a transitive kommer ‘comes’.
(2:64)
* Frida
Frida
kommer en båt till bryggan.
comes
a boat to the.wharf
If we adopt the position that lexical items carry category features that
determine in what structures the item can occur, we have a way of ruling
out examples like (2:64), but we instead have to assume that the examples with up (2:61) above involve (abstract) category changing morphology. On the other hand, if we take it that lexical items lack category
specifications, we would have to account for the fact that few roots are
as flexible as √up. The challenge for a theory of argument structure is to
account for the restrictions on lexical items like √förstör ‘destroy’ and
√kom ‘come’ while allowing for enough flexibility to capture e.g. the
behaviour of roots like √smält. In other words, the empirical question is
how predictable the argument structure of a verb is, and how variable.
The question of category features has a bearing also on our understanding of cross-linguistic variation and change in argument structure.
In Present-Day Danish and older Swedish, komma has also transitive
uses; see the Danish example in (2:65) and the Old Swedish example in
(2:66).
34
(2:65)
Man kommer to
dråber
i en skål varmt
one comes two
drops
in a
bowl warm
‘One puts two drops in a bowl of warm water.’
(Google)
vand
water
(2:66)
Þa iohannes hafþe komit mæsta del af asia tel cristendoms.
when John
had come most part of Asia to Christianity
‘when John had christened most of Asia’
(Leg c. 1300:154)
If lexical items lack syntactic features, a change in selectional properties
or variability in argument structure could only be due to a change in the
encyclopaedic content of the item. If instead we assume that lexical
items have category features that determine the possible structures they
can appear in, it is not (changes in) the restrictions on the occurrence of
lexical items in structures that need to be explained, but (changes in) the
variability. If the category features are semantically motivated, a change
in argument structure must still correlate with a change in the encyclopaedic content of the item.
In the next section, I consider some diagnostics for unaccusativity that
rely on the fact that verbs cannot freely occur in all kinds of structures.
As we will see in the following chapters, we can to a large extent predict
what kind of participles a verb can form, on the basis of the properties of
the verb. To do so, we must specify what the relevant properties of an
individual verb (or group of verbs) are. In other words, the relevant
semantics of the verbs must be specified in some suitably abstract and
general way. This can be done either by assuming that lexical items
carry syntactically active features (i.e. category features), or by means of
diacritics that determine class membership (as in e.g. Embick & Halle
2005 and Julien 2007). Following Ramchand (2008a), I will take the
former stance and assume that verbs carry (combinations of) category
features which determine what structures they can appear in and what
interpretation they have. Note that it is possible to assume that lexical
items carry category features without having a lexical module with its
own operations and rules. By assuming that participles are syntactically
formed, we predict that the syntactically relevant features of verbs will
have an effect on the properties of the participle and on the possibility of
forming a particular participle from a given verb.
The question of category features is independent of the question of
what the relevant categories are. Even if roots are not lexically specified
for category membership in Distributed Morphology, the lexical categories (can) still play a part in the analysis; the (functional) elements v,
n, a and p can be attached to a root and turn it into a verb, noun, adjec-
35
tive or preposition, respectively, as in the case with up in (2:61) above.
Josefsson (1998) analyses Swedish past participles as adjectives, albeit
with internal structure. Another option would be to let participles belong
to a particular category (participle). A full account must in either way
specify what constitutes a category, in order to make it more than a
label. Josefsson (1998) ties the categories to semantic notions like property or event. Baker (2003) instead argues that the category corresponds
to syntactic configuration: verbs but not adjectives have a specifier.23 In
this thesis, I explore the possibility that the properties of participles are a
consequence of combinations of functional elements (Tense, Aspect,
Voice and verbal structure) and not a particular categorial element (an
adjectival or participial head). I return to the consequences of this
approach in chapter 11 below.
2.4. Unaccusatives and the structure of events
In section 2.2 above, I noted that participles can have the same argument
structure as verbs. Moreover, whether past participles have an active or
a passive reading depends on the properties of the verb; unaccusative
verbs but not unergative and transitive verbs have active participles in
the complement of BE in the Germanic languages. In this section, I
introduce some central notions concerning verb phrase structure. Since
much of the discussion in the following chapters concerns active participles in the complement of BE, the group of unaccusative verbs are of
importance; therefore I start by considering the distinguishing properties
of these verbs in section 2.4.1.24 Section 2.4.2 outlines the verb phrase
structure that will be assumed in the following chapters.
2.4.1. Unaccusatives and unergatives
One of the standard diagnostics used to distinguish unaccusative from
unergative verbs is passivization. Unaccusative verbs like vissna ‘wilt’
and gulna ‘turn yellow’ cannot occur in impersonal passives, whereas
23
See Thurén (2006, 2008) for a discussion of the category of Swedish present
participles.
24 The discussion is limited to intransitive verbs, leaving aside transitive verbs
with unaccusative behaviour (see Belletti & Rizzi 1988, Pesetsky 1995, Bennis 2004
among many others). For an overview, see Alexiadou et al. (2004a) and references
cited there.
36
unergative verbs like sova ‘sleep’ and dansa ‘dance’ can; cf. (2:67) and
(2:68).25
(2:67)
a. * Det
vissnas
there wilt.PRES.PASS
b. * Det gulnas
there turns.yellow.PASS
(2:68)
a.
b.
i vasen.
in the.vase
i träden.
in the.trees
Nu sovs
det
på mötet
igen.
now sleeps.PASS there at the.meeting again
‘Now there are people sleeping at the meeting again.’
På sommaren dansas
det
på
in the.summer dance.PRES.PASS
there on
bryggan (av alla och envar).
the.wharf by all and each
‘In summer, each and everyone dances on the wharf.’
Similarly, unaccusative verbs do not form passive participles but have
active past participles in e.g. prenominal position and postnominal reduced relatives; cf. (2:69) and (2:70).
(2:69)
a.
b.
c.
(2:70)
a.
b.
c.
25
de redan vissnade blommorna
the already wilted
flowers
‘the already wilted flowers’
en fallen ängel
a
fallen angel
‘a fallen angel’
de nyligen hitkomna gästerna
the recently here.come guests
‘the guests who recently came here’
blommorna, nyligen inköpta
men redan vissnade
the.flowers recently in.bought but already wilted
‘the flowers that were bought recently but already have wilted’
ärkeängeln, fallen i onåd
the.archangel fallen in disgrace
‘the archangel who fell in disgrace’
gästerna, hitkomna från Stockholm med buss
the.guests here.come from Stockholm by bus
‘the guests who arrived from Stockholm by bus’
In Swedish, impersonal passives are generally formed with the morphological
passive. In Norwegian and Danish, on the other hand, the periphrastic passive is
used (for Norwegian, see Åfarli 1992:101–103).
37
Unergative verbs do not occur in prenominal position or reduced relatives unless they modify the correspondence to a cognate object and
have a passive reading; cf. (2:71) and (2:72).
(2:71)
a. * en
a
b. * en
a
(2:72)
a.
b.
dansad
pojke
danced boy
levd person
lived person
en dansad
vals
a danced waltz
‘a danced waltz’
ett levt
liv
a lived life
‘a lived life’
In languages with a split auxiliary system, unaccusative verbs like arrive
form perfects with BE, while unergative verbs like sleep have perfects
with HAVE; see the Danish examples in (2:73). Note that in Danish, BE
is not only possible in perfects with unaccusative verbs, but obligatory.
(2:73)
a.
b.
Peter *har/er ankommet.
Peter has/is arrived
‘Peter has arrived.’
Ole har/*er sovet.
Ole has/is slept
‘Ole has slept.’
(Bjerre & Bjerre 2007:7)
Also in Swedish, where the perfect auxiliary is HAVE independently of
the type of predicate, some unaccusatives can form active perfect-like
constructions with BE, while unergatives never do; cf. the unaccusative
in (2:74a) and the unergative in (2:74b).
(2:74)
a.
Deltagarna
var redan anlända.
the.participants were already arrived
‘The participants had already arrived.’
b. * Han var redan arbetat/arbetad.
he was already work.SUP/work.PTC.C.SG
Intended: ‘He had already worked.’
The differences between unaccusatives and unergatives is standardly
explained by the Unaccusative Hypothesis, which states that the subject
of an unaccusative verb is generated as an internal argument, whereas
the subject of an unergative verb is a subject on all levels of representa-
38
tion; see the structures in (2:75) (see Perlmutter 1978, Burzio 1986 and
many others).26
(2:75)
a.
b.
Unergative: Lisa dances
[VP DP V ]
Unaccusative: Lisa arrives.
[VP V [DP]]
The base position of the subject correlates with its theta role: the subject
of unaccusatives carries the role Theme, whereas unergatives take agentive subjects. A standard assumption is that passive formation involves
the demotion of the external argument; since unaccusatives lack external
argument, they do not passivize.
As pointed out by e.g. Hoekstra & Mulder (1990:6), telic and atelic
intransitives behave differently with regard to auxiliary selection; that is,
the choice of auxiliary in perfects depends on whether the event has a
natural end-point or not. As noted already by Paul (1902), the choice of
auxiliary in e.g. Dutch and German also depends on telicity; cf. the
Dutch examples in (2:76a), which is atelic and requires the auxiliary
HAVE, and (2:76b), which is telic and degraded with HAVE.
(2:76)
a.
b.
Hij heeft/*is gelopen.
he has/is
run
‘He has run.’
Hij ?heeft/is naar huis
he has/is
to
home
‘He has run home.’
(Zaenen 1988:136)
gelopen.
run
More generally, variable behaviour verbs tend to behave like unaccusatives when they have a telic reading (e.g. when they are modified by a
Goal PP), and like unergatives when they are atelic. For instance, a verb
like resa ‘travel’ can only have an active participle in a reduced relative
when it has a telic reading; see (2:77).
(2:77)
26
a.
en pojke, hitrest
från Stockholm med två-tåget
a boy
here.travelled from Stockholm with two-the.train
‘a boy who has come here from Stockholm with the two-train’
b. * en pojke, kringrest
i Europa i flera år
a boy
around.travelled in Europe for several years
In minimalist accounts where the external argument is assumed to be generated
in spec-v, the distinction between unergatives and unaccusatives is often understood
as depending on the properties of v or on the presence/absence of v.
39
It has sometimes been argued that telicity is in fact the crucial property
for unaccusativity (see e.g. Tenny 1994 and van Hout 2004; cf. also Paul
1902:166). For Tenny (1994), telicity is a consequence of the presence
of an internal argument (a delimiting direct object); the Aktionsart of
unaccusatives is therefore due to the base position of the subject, and the
Unaccusative Hypothesis can thus be maintained.
By now, it is well known that the same diagnostics for unaccusativity
cannot be applied to all languages and that certain verbs may be unaccusative according to one diagnostic and unergative according to another
also within the same language. As we will see below, not all unaccusatives behave the same when BE becomes more restricted in Swedish. In
Present-Day Swedish, only a smaller group of the verbs that have active
prenominal participles can occur in the complement of BE; cf. (2:78a)
and (2:78b).
(2:78)
a.
det nyligen kallnade kaffet
the recently cooled
coffee
‘the coffee that recently cooled down’
b. * Kaffet
är nyligen kallnat.
the.coffee is recently cooled
In older Swedish, on the other hand, a larger group of verbs could occur
in the complement of BE than are (presently) possible in prenominal
position; cf. (2:79) and (2:80) with the verb fara ‘go’.
athy [at I] ware faren aff Westeraars til Stocholm.
that.you were gone from Västerås
to Stockholm
‘that you were gone from Västerås to Stockholm.’
(Siggesson a. 1500:15)
(2:79)
(2:80)
a.
??
en till Stockholm faren pojke
a to Stockholm gone boy
‘a boy who has gone to Stockholm’
b. ?? en pojke faren från Stockholm med två-tåget
a boy
gone from Stockholm with two-the.train
‘a boy who left Stockholm with the two o’clock train’
In the Scandinavian languages, some of the verbs that have active participles in prenominal position and postnominal reduced relatives are
marginally possible in impersonal passives; see the examples in (2:81)
which are grammatical on an iterative reading. Impersonal passives of
telic variable behaviour verbs are less marked; cf. (2:82).
40
(2:81)
a.
b.
(2:82)
Det
koms
och gicks
hela dagen.
there come.PRET.PASS and go.PRET.PASS all the.day
‘People were coming and going all day.’
Det fölls
på isen
(och skrattades).
there fall.PRET.PASS on the.ice and laugh.PRET.PASS
‘People were falling on the ice (and laughing).’
Det seglades
till andra kontinenter och det
there sail.PRET.PASS to other continents
and there
gicks
genom djungler
walk.PRET.PASS
through jungles
‘People sailed to other continents and walked through jungles.’
(Google)
Icelandic is more liberal; cf. the impersonal passives with fara ‘go’ in
(2:83) and (2:84) (and see Thráinsson 2007:267ff., and references cited
there).
(2:83)
Það var farið snemma af
stað.
there was gone early
from place
‘People left early.’
(Thráinsson 2007:268)
(2:84)
Svo eftir það var farið í smáralind
so after that was gone in Smáralind
‘So after that, people went to Smáralind’
(Google)
I return to impersonal passives and the mismatches in the diagnostics of
unaccusativity in chapter 7 below. As we will see, neither (non)agentivity nor (a)telicity necessarily distinguish the two groups of verbs. Given
the mismatches in diagnostics, it is also clear that both groups are
syntactically heterogeneous.
In the following chapters, the term unaccusative is used to refer to
change of location verbs like arrive and change of state verbs like break
and wilt; I include variable behaviour verbs in telic contexts (e.g. travel
to Stockholm) when nothing else is said.27 These are the verbs that have
27
Frysa ‘freeze’ is only included among the unaccusatives when it denotes a
change of state, and not when it expresses a persistent situation. Only in the former
case is transitivization possible; cf. (i) and (ii).
(i) a.
b.
Vattnet fryser.
the.water freezes
Hon fryser vattnet.
she freezes the.water
41
active participles in the complement of BE in Old Swedish; in PresentDay Swedish, only a few of them still do; cf. the Old Swedish example
in (2:85) and the ungrammatical present-day example in (2:86) (and see
further below chapter 5 and 7).
Herra Iwan ær ater
vordhin stark
Sir
Ivan is
again become strong
‘Sir Ivan has become strong again.’
(Ivan c.1303:2509)
(2:85)
* Ivan är återigen bliven stark.
Ivan is again become strong
(2:86)
Other intransitives (e.g. work, dance, exist) are referred to as unergative;
these include also the copula BE (but see chapter 7, section 7.6) and
semelfactives like hicka ‘hickup’.
2.4.2. Ramchand’s First Phase Syntax
As pointed out in section 2.3 above, the challenge for a theory of argument structure is to capture both the variability in the behaviour of verbs
and the restrictions on verbs that underlie e.g. the distinction between
unergative and unaccusative verbs. For instance, the argument structure
of an unergative verb like dansa ‘dance’ is rather flexible, and although
dansa is generally taken to be an intransitive and unergative verb, it is
not incompatible with transitive structures; some of the possibilities are
illustrated in (2:87) below (cf. Åfarli 2007). The transitive structures in
(2:87c-d) have passive versions; see (2:88).
(2:87)
a.
b.
(ii) a.
Han dansade.
he danced
‘He danced.’
Han dansade hela
vägen hem.
he danced whole the.way home
‘He danced the whole way home.’
Lisa fryser.
Lisa freezes
‘Lisa is cold.’
b. * Hon fryser Lisa.
she freezes Lisa
Intended: ‘She is making Lisa feel cold.’
42
c.
d.
(2:88)
a.
b.
Han dansade en vals.
he danced a waltz
‘He danced a waltz.’
Han dansade henne till dörren.
he danced her
to
the.door
‘He danced her to the door.’
Idag
dansades
det bara vals.
today dance.PRET.PASS there only waltz
‘Today, only waltz was danced.’
Hon dansades
till dörren.
she dance.PRET.PASS to the.door
‘She was danced to the door.’
As noted, not all verbs are equally flexible. For instance, the unaccusative verb komma disallows transitive structures; cf. (2:89a) and (2:89b).
(2:89)
a.
Han kom till affären.
he came to
the.store
‘He came to the store.’
b. * Hon kom honom till affären.
she came him
to
the.store
It is well known that variability in argument structure correlates with
variation in a range of syntactic properties (relating to e.g. participle
formation, passivization, auxiliary selection), as well as with variability
in interpretation. As we saw above, variable behaviour verbs form perfects with BE in Dutch, when they occur with a PP or particle that
provides a telos, but with HAVE in the absence of such. On its transitive
use, the verb smälta ‘melt’ has a causative reading; on its intransitive
use, it does not. In line with much current work, I take these systematic
variations in argument structure and interpretation to be syntactically
derived (see in particular Hale & Keyser 1993a). More generally, I
assume that the regular and predictable semantics of an eventuality is a
direct consequence of syntactic structure, and that the interpretation
depends on syntactic structure in combination with the encyclopaedic
content of the lexical items and the context. The particular approach to
verb phrase structure that will be employed in the following is that
developed by Ramchand (2008a), which has previously been used to
account for a range of phenomena (see e.g. Ramchand & Svenonius
2002 on particles, Butt & Ramchand 2005 on complex predicates in
Hindi/Urdu, Wiklund 2007 on pseudocoordination, Lundquist 2009 on
nominalizations and participles, and Svenonius 2006 on case). As we
will see, this system, which explicitly ties a binary-branching syntactic
43
structure to semantic interpretation, has some success in accounting for
the properties of past participles and the different behaviour of different
groups of verbs.
Ramchand argues that the verb phrase can be decomposed into three
parts that correspond to three subeventualities of an event: initP represents the initial or causing state, procP the process or transition part of
the event and resP the target state.28 The structure of a full verb phrase
is given in (2:90).29
(2:90)
initP
DP
initiator
procP
init
DP
undergoer
resP
proc
DP
resultee
res
XP
All the heads in the verb phrase require a filled specifier. The DP
licensed in spec-init (the so-called external argument) is interpreted as
Initiator, the DP in spec-proc is Undergoer (the entity that undergoes
the change or process) while the DP in spec-res is Resultee (the entity of
which the target state is predicated). The same DP can be merged in
several positions; no Theta Criterion is assumed.
Consider the example in (2:91) with the verb förstöra ‘destroy’. The
Initiator, Frida, causes the event to happen, while the lamp is directly
28
I use Ramchand’s terminology, although it is somewhat unfortunate, since resP
introduces a target state and not a resultant state in the sense of Parsons 1990 (see
chapter 6 below).
29 In the following, I often give a simplified representation of structures, using
square brackets. When DPs are not relevant for the discussion, only the label and the
head will be included in the representation; the verbal heads always have a specifier
with a DP argument. The structure in (2:90) will therefore often be represented as in
(i) or (ii) below.
(i)
(ii)
[initP DP init [procP DP proc [resP DP res [XP]]]]
[initP init [procP proc [resP res]]]
44
affected by the event and ends up in the state of being destroyed. In
other words, the direct object of destroy is both Undergoer and Resultee.
Frida förstörde lampan.
Frida destroyed the.lamp
‘Frida destroyed the lamp.’
(2:91)
The Initiator-role is more general than the role Agent, and need not be
animate (Ramchand 2008a:52; cf. Rappaport Hovav & Levin 2000). The
subject of transitive smälta ‘melt’ is Initiator in both (2:92a) and
(2:92b).
(2:92)
a.
b.
Frida smälte isen.
Frida melted the.ice
‘Frida melted the ice.’
Solen smälte isen.
the.sun melted the.ice
‘The sun melted the ice.’
The projections are always ordered as in (2:90), but they do not all need
to be present, and they are only present when they can be identified by
being associated with lexical material. For instance, whereas förstöra
‘destroy’ identifies a target state, a verb like skriva ‘write’ in examples
like (2:93) does not. As we will see in chapter 6 below, resP is only one
of the possible complements of proc, and procP only one of the possible
complements of initP; procP can also take small clause, PP or DP complements. However, the heads init, proc and res are primitives in the
system, and they introduce separate subeventualities which together
form the complex event (cf. Ramchand & Svenonius 2002).30
(2:93)
Han skriver.
he writes
‘He writes.’
The semantics of the verbal heads is dependent on their syntactic position. Taken by itself, initP does not encode causativity; it is interpreted
as a causative state only when it is combined with a procP. Similarly,
resP only expresses a target state of following from an event when it is
in the complement of a proc head. The proc head introduces eventive
semantics; a procP is therefore not included in the structure of stative
verbs. I refer to Ramchand (2008a:42ff.) for the precise semantics.
30
The complement of res does not appear to be a possible argument position. I
have no explanation for this.
45
To account for restrictions on argument structure, Ramchand assumes
that verbs are lexically specified for a combination of the category features init, proc and res corresponding to the three verbal heads, and that
these features determine the possible positions where the item can be
inserted.31 An item with an init feature can associate with init in the verb
phrase, and identify the content of the initial state; an item with a proc
feature can associate with proc and an item with a res feature can associate with res and identify the target state. The same lexical item can
associate with several positions, if it carries more than one category
32
feature (2008a:57f.). The verb skriva in (2:93) carries an init and a proc
feature, but not a res feature; hence, it identifies an initial state and a
process event, but no target state.
The lexical items also impose a restriction on the coindexing of its
arguments; this accounts for the fact that some verbs are obligatorily
intransitive, and other verbs necessarily transitive. The item förstöra is
lexically specified for the features init, proc and res, and requires the
same argument to be both Undergoer and Resultee. That is, the verb förstöra appears in a transitive, causative structure, defines a target state,
and takes an object DP which undergoes the destruction, and which
holds the target state of being destroyed; consider the lexical entry and
structure in (2:94); the identity of two DPs is marked by coindexing of
the category features.
(2:94)
Lexical entry for förstöra ‘destroy’: [init, proci, resi ]
[initP DPj förstöra [procP DPi förstöra [resP DPi förstöra]]]
In other words, a child that acquires a verb like förstöra learns that it
appears in a certain (transitive) structure, and, while doing so, that it
involves the three subeventualities and that the subject referent causes
the object referent to undergo a process and end up in a state.
Consider now the unaccusative verb anlända in (2:95).
31
Ramchand argues that the features are “in principle interpretable, since they are
the features that trigger the semantics of event composition and are required for the
proper interpretation of the first phase syntactic structure” (2008:58).
32 Following standard minimalist assumptions, I assume that lexical items can be
inserted or merged/remerged in several positions. For the purposes of this thesis, the
question of lexical insertion is not crucial (for discussion, see Ramchand 2008a and
references cited there; cf. also Lundquist 2009). Since it is generally not important
what positions are realized, I do not represent the highest instance in any particular
way; when the full clause is built up, little lexical material will be realized within the
verb phrase.
46
(2:95)
Han anlände klockan
två.
he arrived the.clock two
‘He arrived at two o’clock.’
Like förstöra ‘destroy’, the lexical item anlända carries all three category features, and therefore expresses an initial state, a transition and a
target state (see further chapter 6 and 7). However, unlike förstöra,
anlända requires the same DP to be merged in all three specifier positions, and it is therefore obligatorily intransitive. The syntactically relevant information of the lexical entry and the verb phrase structure are
given in (2:96). 33
(2:96)
Lexical entry for anlända ‘arrive’: [initi, proci, resi ]
[initP DPi anlända [procP DPi anlända [resP DPi anlända]]]
Since the category verb under this account is split in three, and since the
Theta Criterion is discarded, the system is more flexible than more
traditional accounts; it can therefore capture (some of) the variations in
the behaviour of intransitive verbs, and it allows for more than two
groups of intransitives (cf. e.g. Alexiadou & Anagnostopoulou 2004).
As we will see, this gives us a way of making predictions regarding the
properties of participial constructions based on the properties of the
participial verb and its feature specification. The framework provides a
middle way between a lexical and a syntactic account of verb phrase
structure, while still keeping the semantic base for the distinctions
between the groups of verbs. Thus, it resolves (or rather dissolves) the
question of whether the distinctions are semantic, lexical or syntactic
(cf. e.g. van Valin 1990, Levin & Rappaport Hovav 1995, Borer
1998:62); all three approaches are partly right and add something to the
understanding of verbs, and they are not mutually exclusive.
From the assumption that lexical items carry the category features
init, proc and res it does not follow that verbs are necessarily marked as
transitive, unergative or unaccusative in the lexicon. For instance,
nothing excludes that an item which lacks e.g. an init feature appears in
a causative and transitive structure, but, then, in the complement of a
(zero) init morpheme (given that the language has such a morpheme).
English presumably has a silent init head, and change of state verbs like
33
The requirement of coindexed arguments specified in the lexical entry cannot be
satisfied by a reflexive (at least not in the Germanic languages); cf. (i) which is
ungrammatical.
(i)
*Han ankom sig klockan
två.
he
arrived REFL the.clock two
47
grow can therefore be transitivized without an overt change in morphology (see Ramchand 2008a:86f.).34 The lexical item break has the category features proc and res; see (2:97). In the intransitive structure in
(2:98a), there is no initial state and no Initiator, whereas in (2:98b), the
abstract init morpheme identifies the initial state and an external argument is licensed.
Lexical entry for break: [proci, resi]
(2:97)
(2:98)
a.
b.
The vase broke.
[procP the vase broke [resP the vase broke]]
She broke the vase.
[initP she ∅ [procP the vase broke [resP the vase broke]]]
Moreover, verbs like grow or dance carry a proc feature, but no res
feature, and the complement of proc is not specified in the lexical entry
of the verb. In this way, the flexibility with regard to complementation
illustrated in (2:87) above can be accounted for.
Ramchand assumes that lexical items can sometimes spell out a
structure which does not include all the heads for which it is specified,
i.e., items can have unlinked (underassociated) category features. For
underassociation to be possible, the unlinked feature must be independently identified by some item in the verb phrase and the lexical content
of the two items is unified (see further Ramchand 2008a:98, 135). This
can for instance be the case in verb–particle constructions where both
the verb and the particle carry res features, as in e.g. break off in (2:99)
below (cf. Ramchand & Svenonius 2002). Here, the res feature of break
can be underassociated (i.e. not associated with the res head) since the
34
In Swedish, few verbs can be transitivized without a change in morphology;
smälta ‘melt’ is one of these. There is, however, evidence for an init morpheme
(corresponding to the old suffix -ia) in the change in the vowel of the stem (umlaut)
in examples like falla ‘fall’ in (i), and fälla ‘fell’ in (ii).
(i) Trädet faller.
the.tree falls
‘The tree is falling.’
(ii) Hon fäller träd.
she fells trees
‘She is felling trees.’
Historically, also the causative and the inchoative uses of smälta can be assumed to
correspond to two different verb forms, the former with weak inflection (pres.
smälta, pret. smälte), the latter with strong inflection (pres. smälta, pret. smalt).
48
particle identifies res; in (2:99), the handle ends up in the state specified
by off, and it does not necessarily become broken.
(2:99)
John broke off the handle.
(Ramchand 2008a:135)
In the following chapters, I will assume that category features can be
underassociated also without the presence of items that can identify
them, but that this has both morphological and interpretive consequences. Specifically, I will assume that certain stative participles
involve verbs with underassociated features. The participial stativizer
aborts the derivation of the verb phrase at some level (to be specified in
the following); participles can therefore involve truncated verb phrases.
2.5. Concluding remarks
In this chapter, I have introduced a distinction between past and perfect
participles which will be important in the following chapters; the former
include participles that are active or passive depending on verb type.
Among the perfect participles, I also include the Swedish supine. Since
the development of the perfect (participle) presumably is tied to the verbal properties of participles, adjectival participles and the properties
associated with these will not be discussed further. The fact that many
constructions with an auxiliary + past participles convey that the participial event is anterior to the time of the auxiliary will, on the other
hand, be important.
In the second part of the chapter, I introduced the distinction between
unaccusative and unergative verbs and an approach to verb phrase
structure. Following Ramchand (2008a), I assume that lexical items
(verbs) carry syntactic information which determines in what structures
they occur. The more detailed investigation of the construction with BE
+ participles of unaccusative verbs in chapter 5 and 7 and the analysis of
participle structure developed in chapter 8 provide a testing ground for
the hypothesis that lexical items carry (the suggested combinations of)
category features. Further details of the framework will be given when
relevant. When the precise composition of the verb phrase is irrelevant
for the discussion, the verb phrase will be summarized as VP.
While verbs carry lexical information relating to event structure, they
are not lexically specified for tense or aspect. In the following chapters,
I will pursue the idea that the verb phrase is the domain for spatial construal, and that the relations between verbal heads and their arguments
49
are spatial and not temporal (see Ramchand 2008a; cf. also e.g. Guéron
2008, Gehrke & Grillo 2009). Temporal semantics is introduced in the
domain above the verb phrase (the T-domain), which I will assume is
also (at least) tripartite (including T, Asp and Voice). As with verbal
structure, not all heads in the T-domain need to be included in a given
derivation, with interpretational and morphological consequences. The
T-domain, and the perfect tense, is the topic of the next chapter.
50
3. Tense, aspect and perfect
This thesis aims at a better understanding of the historical development
of the perfect. In this chapter, the focus is on the very end-point of this
development: the perfect tense. I establish a framework for tense and
aspect and an account of the perfect tense that will be used in the diachronic investigations in the following chapters.
There is a vast literature and a wide variety of semantic and syntactic
formalizations on tense and aspect. Here, a comprehensive investigation
of the semantics of tense and aspect would lead too far afield; consequently, the discussion is limited to giving a necessary background to
the historical study. I take central aspects of tense-aspect and temporal
interpretation to be determined by independent syntactic principles;
following e.g. Zagona (1995, 2007), Stowell (1996, 2007) and Demirdache & Uribe-Etxebarria (2000, 2007), tenses are understood as predicates of temporal ordering which take time-denoting expressions as their
arguments.35
The main aim of the chapter is to establish an analysis of the perfect
tense that accounts for its syntax and semantics; one problem in previous analyses of the perfect has been to reconcile its semantics with a
plausible syntactic structure.36 I build the account of the perfect on the
Extended-Now analysis in Iatridou, Anagnostopoulou & Izvorski (2001)
and Pancheva (2003), but argue for a biclausal account of the perfect
where the Extended-Now is a consequence of the interaction between
the (finite) tense of the matrix clause, the non-finite tense of the participle, and the auxiliary HAVE. In this way, it is possible to account for
the otherwise puzzling restrictions on positional past time adverbials in
the present perfect. Despite the varying properties of perfects in the present-day Germanic languages, I assume that there is reason to talk about
one perfect tense, common to all the languages.
35
Zagona presents an early account in an unpublished manuscript from 1990.
For an overview of the problems relating to the perfect, see Alexiadou et al.
(2003a).
36
51
Section 3.2 introduces the perfect tense and the Reichenbachian
framework. In section 3.3, I present a general account of tense and aspect, and argue for a biclausal analysis of the perfect tense. Sections 3.3
and 3.4 discuss the semantics of the perfect and the restriction on
positional past time adverbials. The chapter ends with a brief excursus
on the tense of infinitives and a note on the so-called inferential perfect.
First, a terminological clarification is in order.
3.1. Terminology
The syntactic-semantic notion (grammatical or outer) aspect is not to be
confused with morphological aspect. I use the terms unbounded and
bounded aspect to refer to the aspectual values that can be realized as
imperfective and perfective morphology, respectively.37 Swedish does
not distinguish perfective and imperfective verb forms, but still makes a
semantic distinction between bounded and unbounded aspect. For
instance, the example in (3:1a) expresses unbounded aspect, while the
example in (3:1b) illustrates bounded aspect, although there is no difference in morphology.38
(3:1)
a.
b.
Han
he
Han
he
duschade
showered
duschade
showered
i
åtminstone tjugo minuter.
for at.least
twenty minutes
på tio minuter.
in
ten minutes
In English, the distinction is morphologically marked; cf. (3:2). In this
thesis, questions pertaining to morphological aspect are largely disregarded.
(3:2)
a.
b.
He was showering for at least twenty minutes.
He showered in ten minutes.
Importantly, boundedness is distinct from perfect; the former is an aspect, the latter, I argue, is a tense. As we will see, the perfect tense may
37
When explicitly referring to values of features, I use capitals, as in [BOUNDED], [UNBOUNDED] and [PAST].
38 In Swedish, in-adverbials have the preposition på ‘on’, whereas for-adverbials
have i ‘in’. For clarity, I gloss på as ‘in’ and i as ‘for’ and refer to these adverbials as
in-adverbials and for-adverbials, respectively, independently of the language under
discussion.
52
involve bounded aspect, but it need not. Precisely how I understand
(un)boundedness will be made clear below.
Outer aspect should not be confused with Aktionsart, which concerns
the type of eventuality involved.39 Following e.g. Platzack (1979), aspect and Aktionsart will be kept strictly apart: the first relates to how the
eventuality is connected to a temporal structure, the latter concerns its
internal structure. Here, Aktionsart (event structure) is understood in
terms of spatial and not temporal relations. This does, however, not
mean that there is no interaction between the two. On the contrary, there
clearly are correlations between aspectual interpretations and Aktionsart
(see chapter 6 below).
3.2. Introduction to the perfect
Like the simple past sentence in (3:3), the present perfect in (3:4) states
that there is an event of Frida eating an apple prior to speech time. In
other words, both the perfect tense and the simple past involve temporal
anteriority in some sense.40
(3:3)
Frida åt
ett äpple.
Frida ate an apple
‘Frida ate an apple.’
(3:4)
Frida har ätit
ett äpple.
Frida has eaten an apple
‘Frida has eaten an apple.’
Whereas the past tense is compatible with positional past time adverbials like yesterday or last week, the present perfect is not, at least not in
39
The term Aktionsart refers to what is often also called lexical or inner aspect.
Since I take also the type of eventuality to be partly syntactically determined, I avoid
the term lexical aspect.
40 In Swedish, also a simple present tense can appear to involve a temporal
interval that stretches from the present into the past; see (i).
(i)
Hon är sjuk sedan igår.
she is sick since
yesterday
‘She has been sick since yesterday.’
According to von Stechow (2002), this possibility is due to the meaning of the
adverbial, and not to the present tense; the present tense never stretches into the past.
I leave this and the so-called historical present aside.
53
languages like English and Swedish.41 In German, on the other hand,
there is no such restriction; cf. Swedish in (3:5), English in (3:6), and
German in (3:7).
(3:5)
a.
Frida
Frida
b. * Frida
Frida
(3:6)
a. Frida ate an apple yesterday/last week.
b. * Frida has eaten an apple yesterday/last week.
(3:7)
a.
b.
åt
ate
har
has
ett äpple igår/förra veckan.
an apple yesterday/last week
ätit ett äpple igår/förra veckan.
eaten an apple yesterday/last week
Er arbeitete gestern.
he worked yesterday
‘He worked yesterday.’
Er hat gestern
gearbeitet.
he has yesterday worked
‘He worked yesterday.’ (Present perfect)
This restriction on positional past time adverbials in languages like
English and Swedish is sometimes called the present perfect puzzle (see
Klein 1992).
The perfect tense is often said to express the relevance of a past event
to a later time (see e.g. Comrie 1976:52, Dahl 1985). Compare the simple past (3:8a) with the past perfect in (3:8b).
(3:8)
a.
b.
At two o’clock, Frida ate an apple.
At two o’clock, Frida had eaten an apple.
Both the simple past and the past perfect are compatible with a positional past time adverbial (at two o’clock). However, while in the simple
past the adverbial necessarily gives the time of the eating event, in the
past perfect it can also specify a time to which the eating is anterior. In
this way, the past perfect involves three times: the moment of speech
41
I disregard examples like (i) which are possible in Swedish (with an iterative
reading).
(i)
Jag har simmat i bassängen kl. 12,
kl. 15
och kl. 18.
I
have swum in the.pool the.clock 12 the.clock 15 and the.clock 18
‘I swam in the pool at noon, at three o’clock and at six o’clock.’
(SAG 1999, 4:237)
Also the so-called inferential reading where the present perfect allows positional
past time adverbials (see e.g. Falk 2002, Rothstein 2005, 2008) is disregarded here. I
return to this reading in section 3.6.2 below.
54
(after two o’clock), the time of the eating event (prior to two o’clock)
and a third time (two o’clock). Reichenbach (1947) terms this third time
the reference time.42
Reichenbach argues that also the simple tenses involve relations between three points in time: the time of speech (S), the time of the eventuality (E), and a reference time (R). Whereas the simple past places both
E and R prior to S, the perfect tense states that the event time is prior to
R and S, which coincide in a present perfect. The present tense properties of the present perfect are in this way dependent on the coincidence of R and S; the past tense properties depend on the anteriority of
E with regard to R. Like a present tense, the present perfect is therefore
compatible with (some) present tense adverbials; cf. (3:9) and (3:10).
(3:9)
Frida has been sleeping for an hour now.
(3:10)
Frida har sovit i
en timme nu.
Frida has slept for an hour
now
‘Frida has been sleeping for an hour now.’
In Swedish, but not in English, the present perfect can also have a future
point of reference, just like the present tense; cf. the Swedish example in
(3:11) and the corresponding, but infelicitous, English example in
(3:12). German patterns with Swedish; cf. (3:13).
(3:11)
(3:12)
(3:13)
Nästa vecka har jag läst klart
boken.
next week have I read finished the.book
‘Next week, I will have finished reading the book.’
# Next week, I have finished reading the book.
Nächste Woche habe ich das Buch fertig gelesen.
next
week
have I
the book finished read
‘Next week, I will have finished reading the book.’
In Reichenbach’s system, where all tenses involve an ordering between
E, R and S, the same morphosyntactic tense can sometimes correspond
42
Building on Reichenbach (1947), Vikner (1985) argues that a four-way system
is required and introduces a second reference time. As pointed out by Julien (2001),
examples that have more than one point of reference also involve more than one
clause; cf (i) below.
(i)
She promised in November that they would have received her paper by the
first day of term.
(Vikner 1985:91)
55
to several possible underlying temporal relations. If we instead take
tenses to involve two separate relations, one between S and R and one
between R and E, the system can be simplified and made to correspond
better to the morphosyntactic tenses appearing in natural language (see
e.g. Comrie 1985, Vikner 1985, Giorgi & Pianesi 1997). By assuming
that there is no direct relation between S and E, we can also capture the
fact that examples like (3:14) are vague with regard to the relation between the event time and the speech time; cf. the corresponding Swedish
future perfect in (3:15).
(3:14)
(I don’t know if he has already, but) by the end of next week he will
surely have written the paper.
E<R&S<R
(E = the time of writing, R = the end of next week, S = now)
(3:15)
(Jag vet inte om han har gjort det redan) men i slutet
I
know not if
he has done it already but in the.end
av nästa vecka har han säkert skrivit artikeln.
of
next week
has he surely written the.paper
E<R&S<R
(E = the time of writing, R = the end of next week, S = now)
In (3:16), a representation of tenses in the modified Reichenbachian
framework is given, together with examples from English and Swedish
(cf. e.g. Giorgi & Pianesi 1997:29).43 Note that E and R always coincide
in the simple tenses.
(3:16)
43
The tenses in English and Swedish, in a modified Reichenbachian
framework:
a. Present: E = R & R = S
i. He is happy.
ii. Han är glad.
b. Simple past: E = R & R < S
i. He was happy.
ii. Han var glad.
c. Simple future: E = R & S < R;
i. He will be happy.
ii. Han kommer att vara glad.
Some of the logically possible tenses are not included since they do not correspond to a tense in English and Swedish. I disregard the difference between will and
be going to which sometimes has been analysed as a difference between simple
future and prospective future (see e.g. Comrie 1976, Julien 2001).
56
d.
e.
f.
Present Perfect: E < R & R = S
i. He has been happy.
ii. Han har varit glad.
Past Perfect: E < R & R < S
i. He had been happy.
ii. Han hade varit glad.
Future perfect: E < R & S < R
i. He will have been happy.
ii. Han kommer att ha varit glad.
In the following, I take the event time and the reference time to be intervals and not points in time, as Reichenbach assumes; the advantages
will become clear below. In section 3.4, I turn to the semantics of the
perfect.
3.3. Temporal-aspectual intervals and the syntax of the perfect
In this section, I introduce the syntax of tense and aspect that will be
assumed throughout and propose biclausal account of the perfect. I
argue that the perfect tense is syntactically and semantically more
complex than the simple tenses.
3.3.1. The argument structure of tense and aspect
In the following, I assume that there is no syntactic element that expresses a reference time in the Reichenbachian sense in the simple tenses. However, neither the complex nor the simple tenses can be fully
accounted for simply in terms of the ordering of the time of the event
and the time of speech. In the simple past, it is, for example, possible to
specify the duration of a temporal interval that contains several instances of an event while independently specifying the duration of the
individual events (see Zagona 2007:468); consider the example in (3:17)
below.
(3:17)
People voted in three minutes for an hour.
(Zagona 2007:468)
Here, the adverbial in three minutes specifies the time of the individual
voting events. The adverbial for an hour, on the other hand, specifies an
interval of one hour which contains a number of voting events. Following Demirdache & Uribe-Etxebarria (2007, 2008), I henceforth refer
57
to this interval as the assertion time (AST) (cf. the Topic Time in Klein
1994). The temporal relations of (3:17) can be illustrated as in (3:18); S
is the speech time, and the square brackets represent the assertion time
which contains an (indefinite) number of three minute long events of
voting, represented as +.
(3:18)
——[—+—+——+—+]——S→
The assertion time corresponds neither to the Reichenbachian reference
time (which is a point in time that coincides with E in the simple tenses;
see (3:16) above) nor to the speech time. Rather, it is the time of which
an assertion is made (cf. Klein 1994, Zagona 2007:474 and SAG 1999,
4:211). Consider the example in (3:19) below; it does not state that there
is no eventuality of me turning off the stove at any past time, but that
there is no such eventuality within a specific, contextually given interval
in the past, namely within the assertion time. The eventuality, then, is
not directly linked to the speech time, but to an interval which tense
places before or after the speech time.
(3:19)
I didn’t turn off the stove.
(Partee 1973:602)
Following Zagona (1995, 2007), Stowell (1996) and Demirdache &
Uribe-Etxebarria (2000, 2007), I take tense and aspect to be predicates
that establish a relation of order or inclusion between their time-denoting arguments.44 In this framework, temporal intervals are thus taken
to be present as arguments in the syntactic structure and they can be
referred to directly (see e.g. Partee 1984, Kamp & Reyle 1993 and
Kratzer 1998 for arguments for a referential approach to tense). In the
case of a simple finite clause, tense (T) establishes a relation between
the speech time and the assertion time, while an aspectual head (Asp)
below T relates the assertion time to the event time which is introduced
in a projection which I label VoiceP. Following e.g. Stowell (1996) and
Demirdache & Uribe-Etxebarria (2007), I represent the temporal arguments as ZPs (Zeit Phrases). The external argument of T corresponds to
the speech time in a simple clause, but as we will see, there are cases
where it is interpreted as the event time of a higher clause; therefore I
44
As argued by Demirdache & Uribe-Etxebarria (2000, 2007), the syntax-semantics of temporal prepositions can be assumed to parallel that of tense and aspect (cf.
chapter 9, section 9.3.1).
58
sometimes refer to it as the evaluation time (EVT). The basic structure
of the T-domain is given in (3:20).45
(3:20)
TP
ZP
evaluation
time
T
(EVT)
AspP
ZP
assertion time
(AST)
Asp
ZP
event time
(E)
VoiceP
Voice
VP
As sketched in chapter 2 above, event structure does not by itself express temporal meaning, but can rather be taken as the domain for
spatial construal; it establishes causal or spatial relations. When the verb
phrase is related to temporal structure, these spatial relations are interpreted as temporal dependencies. Ramchand (2008a, 2008b) assumes
that the event time is established by AspP, via a temporal trace function
(in the sense of Krifka 1992, 1998) which maps the eventuality to its run
time. In the present account, it is instead VoiceP that binds the event
variable and introduces the time variable, while AspP introduces the
assertion time and relates it to the event time (cf. Gehrke & Grillo 2009
for a similar suggestion). VoiceP can be viewed as the link between the
spatial and the temporal domain. The distinction between AspP and
VoiceP will be of some importance for the analysis of participles in
chapters 6 and 8 below, as it allows for operations (e.g. stativization)
that target the event argument and the event time also in structures that
lack AspP. The generic readings in middle constructions and the differ-
45
The structure in (3:20) raises questions relating to the position of DPs in the Tdomain; for simplicity, I will assume that there can be multiple specifiers. It is
possible that temporal arguments (which are always implicit) and temporal relations
can only be construed in relation to eventualities and their arguments, and that T,
Asp and Voice therefore must be linked to (Agree with) both some verbal structure
and a DP.
59
ence between stage-level and individual-level predicates are presumably
also related to the properties of VoiceP; I put these issues aside here.
Whereas tenses (the temporal relations established by TP) can be
analysed in terms of order (e.g. ±before the speech time), I will account
for the aspectual relations established by AspP in terms of inclusion: the
event time is either included in the assertion time interval or, the other
way around, the assertion time is included in the event time interval (see
Zagona 2007:467). This view of tense and aspect is fairly standard and
largely consistent with the accounts by e.g. Smith (1991) and Klein
(1994).
Consider the example in (3:21); + represents the event (E) and the
square brackets the assertion time (AST). Past tense places AST anterior
to the speech time (S); unbounded aspect, in turn, states that AST is
included in the event time. Hence, the sentence in (3:21) states that there
is a past time where the event of writing was ongoing. Since the assertion time interval is properly included in the event time, neither the
beginning nor the endpoint of the event is asserted (cf. Iatridou et al.
2001:170).
(3:21)
She was writing a page (but she didn’t finish it).
———++[++]++———S→
Bounded aspect as in (3:22), on the other hand, places the event within
the assertion time.46 The eventuality can therefore be viewed as a whole
(cf. e.g. Smith 1991:3).
(3:22)
She wrote a page (#but she didn’t finish it).
———[—++++++—]———S→
The internal structure of the verb phrase opens for several other possible
aspects, and the aspectual head can presumably have more specific
semantics and pick out only a specific part of the complex event (see
e.g. Ramchand 2008b). For the present purposes, the simple distinction
between bounded and unbounded aspect suffices (with some additions;
see below).
While it is clear that an assertion time is present also in the simple
tenses, there is little evidence for a Reichenbachian reference time outside the perfect tense. As we have already seen, an at-phrase cannot
specify the Reichenbachian reference time in sentences in the simple
past tense; instead, an at-phrase appears to give the time of the writing
46
This is what Zagona (2008) refers to as contained perfectivity.
60
event (but see section 3.5 below); see (3:23) where Frida’s writing takes
place at noon. In past perfects, at-phrases are ambiguous; cf. (3:24) (see
also (3:8) above).
(3:23)
Frida wrote a letter at noon.
E(write) = noon
(3:24)
Frida had written a letter at noon.
i. E(writing) = noon
ii. E(writing) < noon
Hence, while all tenses involve relations between the speech time, the
assertion time and the event time, there is reason to assume that perfects
have a more complex temporal structure than the simple tenses do.
3.3.2. A biclausal perfect
It has often been assumed that perfects are monoclausal, i.e., that the
auxiliary in a periphrastic perfect is inserted in a functional head in the
extended projection of the main verb (as in e.g. Cinque 1999). In this
kind of approach, the perfect is either introduced by a particular temporal or aspectual head, say a Perfect head (as in e.g. Iatridou et al. 2001),
or by an aspectual head that can also have the values [BOUNDED] and
[UNBOUNDED] (see e.g. Demirdache & Uribe-Etxebarria 2007). In the
former case, an element is introduced in the syntactic apparatus exclusively for the sake of the perfect, and this element is distinguishable
only in the perfect tense. In the latter case, the combination of perfect
morphology with other aspectual morphology (e.g. the progressive)
requires further explanation (e.g. the assumption that Asp can recur in a
clause). I will not discuss this latter alternative further here; it will
become clear why the perfect should be kept apart from aspect.
On an account that assumes a perfect phrase, we could (following
Cinque 1999) assume that this is present also in non-perfects, or we
could take it to be present only when it is licensed by perfect morphology (more in line with the suggestions by e.g. Thráinsson 1996 and
Bobaljik & Thráinsson 1998). On the first alternative, we could assume
that also the simple tenses involve an additional temporal element, but
that it can be identical with, and indistinguishable from, the assertion
time established by aspect. In languages that lack a perfect tense, it
would never be distinguishable (or the perfect phrase always empty). On
this view, the historical development of the perfect is to be understood
61
as a development of a morphological realisation and a new value of a
syntactic-semantic element which is previously present in the language,
but never has been spelled out before. Under the second view, languages
and constructions could differ with regard to the presence of the perfect
phrase, and the historical development could be understood as the emergence of a construction involving a perfect phrase (and perfect morphology) within a language.
In the following, I will argue for an approach that does not assume a
particular element in order to account for the perfect tense. Instead, I
take the perfect to derive from a combination of independently motivated elements: it involves a reduced biclausal structure with two separate
TPs, one introducing a finite tense relating to the speech time, the other
introducing a non-finite tense with the value [PAST]. The structure of
the present or past perfect is given in (3:25) (only the relevant parts of
the structure have been included).
The present or past perfect:
(3:25)
CP
T 1P
C
ZP
EVT 1
Asp1P
T1
ZP
AST 1
Voice1P
Asp1
ZP
E1
V 1P
Voice 1
HAVE
T 2P
ZP
EVT 2
Asp2P
T2
ZP
AST 2
Voice 2P
Asp 2
ZP
E2
Voice2
V2P
62
As will be seen, the non-finite past is a relative tense, in the sense that it
orders the participial assertion time relative to the matrix event time and
not relative to the speech time. In other words, while the external
argument (EVT1) of the finite tense in a matrix clause is interpreted as
the speech time, the external argument of the non-finite T (EVT2) is
interpreted in relation to the time of HAVE.47 For convenience, I refer to
the lower T (T2) as a non-finite tense, although T is never finite in and of
itself; finiteness is always contributed by C (or a head in the C-domain).48 Hence, the difference between T1 and T2 in the structure in
(3:25) is what element it combines with. In this way, the syntax-semantics of the perfect can be derived using pieces that occur also in other
constructions, regardless of our assumptions about the functional sequence. Moreover, given that finiteness and tense should be kept apart,
we expect there to be both non-finite present and non-finite past tenses
in natural language. Also on this analysis, the development of the
perfect involves a change in a functional element already present, but
this element (T) has been visible (in other contexts) also previously.
What is new to the perfect tense is the perfect participle and the use of
HAVE as an auxiliary. The structure of the participle clause is given in
(3:26); it includes VoiceP, AspP and TP, and thus has a fully expanded
T-domain (cf. (3:20) above).
47
On this account, the difference between finite and non-finite tenses is not the
presence/absence of the evaluation time (as in e.g. Bianchi 2003), but how it is interpreted.
48 For simplicity, I take CP to be the highest projection in a full clause. The Cdomain is generally assumed to link the information in the verb phrase and the Tdomain to discourse (see Rizzi 1997). Here, I leave the question of a CP-level in the
non-finite clause open (but see chapter 11). For discussion of restructuring, see e.g.
Wurmbrand (2003) and Wiklund (2007), and references cited there.
63
(3:26)
The perfect participle:
TP
ZP
EVT
AspP
T
[PAST]
ZP
AST
VoiceP
Asp
ZP
E
Voice
VP
From a typological perspective, it is striking how often the perfect is
periphrastic; 88 % of the perfects in the languages investigated by Dahl
(1985) are periphrastic.49 Under a biclausal analysis of the perfect, the
participle and the auxiliary have separate extended projections, and
HAVE is analysed as a verb and not as a functional element inserted in
the extended projection of the main verb. One advantage of this account
is that possessive and temporal HAVE can be unified (cf. e.g. Kayne
1993, Alexiadou 1997:98; but see chapter 9 below). As we will see, the
properties of the perfect also depend partly on properties tied to the
lexical item HAVE.
Unlike English modals, temporal HAVE behaves just like other verbs
with regard to both morphology and position. Unlike modals, temporal
HAVE has a non-finite form; cf. the non-finite perfect in (3:27) and the
ungrammatical examples with modals in (3:28). The only form of
HAVE that does not occur as a temporal auxiliary is the perfect participle (see below).
(3:27)
(3:28)
He must have done it.
a. * He will must do it.
b. * he who shall must learn this book
In Swedish, all available forms of both auxiliaries and main verbs are
realized below e.g. epistemic adverbs, negation and T-domain frequency
49
In fact, also seemingly synthetic perfects can be analysed as being underlyingly
periphrastic; this is how Giorgi & Pianesi (1997) treat the perfect in Classical Latin.
64
adverbs in subordinate clauses; cf. the perfects in (3:29) and the modals
in (3:30).50
(3:29)
(3:30)
a.
han som inte hade gjort
he who not had done
‘he who had not done it’
b. * han som hade inte gjort
he who had not done
‘he who had not done it’
det
it
det
it
a.
hon som inte måste göra
she who not must
do
‘she who dit not have to do it’
b. hon som inte skulle vara
she who not should be
‘she who should not be there’
c. * hon som måste/skulle inte
she who must/should not
det
it
där
there
vara där
be there
The order between certain modals and temporal HAVE can sometimes
be reversed in Swedish, without a clear difference in meaning; see
(3:31) and (3:32) (cf. also SAG 1999, 4:304 and, for Norwegian, Eide
2005:327f.). If the modal and the temporal auxiliary were generated in
functional heads, we would expect the order between them to be fixed.
(3:31)
a.
b.
(3:32)
a.
b.
en bok
som han hade kunnat
läsa om han hade velat
a book that he had could.SUP read if he had wanted
‘a book that he had been able to read if he had wanted to’
en bok som han kunde ha
läst
om han hade velat
a book that he could have.INF read.SUP if he had wanted
‘a book that he had been able to read if he had wanted to’
Det hade bort
regna.
it
had should.SUP rain
‘It should have rained.’
Det borde ha regnat.
it
should have rained
‘It should have rained.’
The monoclausal perfect in Cinque (1999) is partly motivated by the
restrictions on the co-occurrence of adverbs relating to e.g. mood and
50
Several of the diagnostics for auxiliaries given in SAG (1999, 2:541) are not
applicable to temporal HAVE, as they involve the selectional restrictions of the
auxiliary; unlike HAVE, modals like måste ‘must’ and ska ‘will, shall’ are not used
as main verbs.
65
aspect, which are the same in perfects as in the simple tenses. Cinque
argues that adverbs are generated in the specifiers of functional heads;
since he assumes that a phrase can have only one specifier, only one
adverb of each type is possible in monoclausal structures; cf. e.g. the
equally ungrammatical examples in (3:33) and (3:34).
(3:33)
a. * Uppenbarligen fick hon möjligen jobbet.
obviously
got she possibly the.job
b. * Tyvärr
fick hon lyckligtvis inte jobbet.
unfortunately got she luckily
not the.job
(3:34)
a. * Uppenbarligen har hon möjligen fått jobbet.
obviously
has she possibly got the.job
b. * Tyvärr
har hon lyckligtvis inte fått jobbet
unfortunately has she luckily
not got the.job
However, as noted by Alexiadou (1997:168), Greek allows two epistemic or evidential adverbs in periphrastic tenses, but only one in the
simple tenses; see (3:35). This suggests that there are more positions
available in the periphrastic constructions, i.e., that there is more than
one clause involved.
(3:35)
a. * Pithanos profanos o
Janis efige
probably obviously the Janis left
b. * Pithanos o
Janis profanos efige
probably the Janis obviously left
c. o
Janis profanos ehi pithanos figi
the Janis obviously has probably left
(Alexiadou 1997:168)
A systematic investigation of the restrictions on T-domain adverbs
would lead too far afield. Here it suffices to note that the possibility of
adverbial modification is partly independent of clausality. We can, for
example, observe that not all clauses allow epistemic or evidential
adverbs in Swedish; neither certain non-finite clauses nor imperative
clauses do; cf. the infinitivals in (3:36) and the imperative in (3:37) (and
see further SAG 1999, 4:89).51
51
The infinitival marker att is generally taken to be in C in Swedish (see e.g.
Christensen 2007 and references cited there).
66
(3:36)
a.
b.
Det är naturligtvis alltid ledsamt
att
it
is naturally
always unfortunate to
(*tyvärr/*uppenbarligen) inte få
jobbet.
unfortunately/obviously not get the.job
‘It is naturally always unfortunate not to (*unfortunately/*obviously)
get the job.’
Han hoppas att (*lyckligtvis/*möjligen) få
jobbet.
he hopes to luckily/possibly
get the.job
‘He is hoping to (*luckily/*possibly) get the job.’
Gå (*förmodligen) till baren först om du vill hitta Viktor.
go
probably
to the.bar first if you want find Victor
‘Go (*probably) to the bar first if you want to find Victor.’
(SAG 1999, 4:89)
(3:37)
The possibility of epistemic and evidential adverbs in non-finite clauses
depends on factivity. In factive infinitivals, the event is presupposed,
and the presupposition cannot be cancelled by a matrix negation
(Kiparsky & Kiparsky 1970:150, Wiklund 2007:40). In the factive infinitival in (3:38a), the presupposition is therefore that he wins a prize;
only the matrix predicate is negated. In the non-factive infinitival in
(3:38b), on the other hand, also the embedded event is negated; (3:38b)
implies that he did not read anything in the book at the relevant time.
(3:38)
a.
b.
Han var inte glad
över att vinna ett pris.
he was not happy over to win
a prize
‘He was not happy about winning a prize.’
Han började inte att läsa boken.
he started not to
read the.book
‘He did not start reading the book.’
(cf. Wiklund 2007:40f.)
Epistemic and evidential adverbs are only possible in factive infinitivals;
cf. the factive infinitival in (3:39a) and the non-factive infinitival in
(3:39b).
(3:39)
a.
Han var glad över att troligen/faktiskt vinna ett pris.
he was happy over to probably/actually win a
prize
‘He was happy about possibly/actually winning a prize.’
b. * Han börjar att möjligtvis/faktiskt läsa boken.
he starts to
possibly/actually read the.book
Perfects pattern with non-factive infinitivals like (3:36b); cf. (3:40)
where the participial eventuality is negated by a negation above the
67
auxiliary. The restriction on epistemic and evidential adverbs in the perfect is therefore not an argument against a biclausal analysis.
han som inte har vunnit ett pris
he who not has won
a prize
‘he who has not won a prize’
(3:40)
Hornstein (1990) presents another argument against a biclausal analysis
of the perfect, concerning the restrictions on recursion of tenses. As
natural language is otherwise characterized by the lack of restrictions on
the number of possible embeddings, we might expect also the recursion
of tense to be unconstrained. While the presence of two tenses in the
same clause is excluded, there are cases where a clause with a non-finite
tense embeds another clause with non-finite tense (see below section
3.6). A perfect of a perfect is, however, impossible; cf. (3:41a) and
(3:41b).52
(3:41)
a.
På senare tid har hon ansetts
ha
skrivit
on later time has she considered.PASS have written
boken
på 1890-talet.
the.book in the.1890s
‘Lately she has been considered to have written the book in the
1890s.’
b. * Hon har haft skrivit boken.
she has had written the.book
With Julien (2001:130), we could assume that there can be an infinite
number of TPs in a sentence as long as they all have a function. Along
similar lines, Demirdache & Uribe-Etxebarria (2007:348ff.) argue for an
economy condition on the temporal computation. This condition successfully excludes e.g. the progressive of the progressive, but not
necessarily the perfect of the perfect: if the perfect places the event time
52
Perfects of perfects should not be confused with copying constructions where a
supine form embeds another supine, as in (i). These cases do not involve a perfect of
the auxiliary HAVE. Semantically, the lower supine corresponds to an infinitive; (i)
is therefore equivalent to (ii) (see Wiklund 2007, and cf. Hulthén 1944:228, Thráinsson et al. 2004:363).
(i) Han hade kunnat
skrivit.
he
had could.SUP write.SUP
‘He had been able to write.’
(ii) Han hade kunnat
skriva.
he
had could.SUP write.INF
‘He had been able to write.’
68
anterior to a reference time, the perfect of a perfect would place a reference time anterior to another reference time (cf. Demirdache &
Uribe-Etxebarria 2007:351). If the two reference times need not overlap,
they can both ‘have a function’.
There are other possible ways of excluding a perfect of a perfect. If
we phrase the restriction in terms of the selectional requirements of the
auxiliary, rather than the restrictions on tense embedding, the impossibility of a perfect of a perfect is more expected: temporal HAVE cannot
satisfy its own selectional restrictions.53 If the restriction is due to
properties of the auxiliary, there is a possibility for variation between
languages. As noted by Demirdache & Uribe-Etxebarria (2007:351),
perfects of perfects are in fact possible in Breton and certain varieties of
French; see the dialectal French example in (3:42) below.54
(3:42)
Quand j’ai
eu
dansé,
je me suis désaltéré.
when have.PRES.1SG have.PTC dance.PTC I quenched my thirst.
(Demirdache & Uribe-Etxebarria 2007:351)
I conclude that the arguments against a biclausal analysis of the perfect
are not compelling. The advantage, on the other hand, is clear: the
biclausal analysis does without a particular perfect phrase, and makes
reference to a non-finite tense which is independently motivated. However, it remains to be seen how the analysis as outlined this far accounts
for the semantics of the perfect.
53
As we will see below, there are modal contexts where perfect morphology does
not express the semantics of perfect tense; if the restriction on recursion was due to
the tense semantics, we would expect recursion of perfect morphology to be possible
in these contexts, contrary to fact.
54 Morphological perfects of perfects occur also in certain Southern German dialects; see (i) and (ii) (from Rowley 2003). These dialects do, however, lack synthetic
preterite forms, and the examples should be interpreted as past perfects.
(i) I hòn-s gahòt
I have had
‘I had seen’
(Rowley 2003)
tsechen
seen
(ii) I pin
gaben
I am
been
‘I had come.’
(Rowley 2003)
khemmen
come
69
3.3.3. Conclusion
One advantage of the biclausal analysis is that it does not rely on the
stipulation of an element that is only visible in perfects. Instead, it involves an element (a non-finite T) which is required also in the analysis
of certain infinitivals. There are languages where infinitival forms can
be inflected for tense; cf. the Latin ECM infinitival in (3:43) which has a
tensed infinitival form of BE. I return to the tense of infinitivals in
section 3.6 below. Given that tense and finiteness are distinct, it would
be unexpected if a non-finite T with a past tense value was missing in
natural language.
(3:43)
Homerum
caecum
fuisse
Homer.ACC blind.ACC be.PERF.INF
‘It is said that Homer was blind.’
(Lundin 2003:72 fn. 6)
traditur.
say.PRES.PASS
On the present account, the perfect participle (including the Swedish
supine) is thus a non-finite verb form with a past tense value.55 In the
following chapters, I argue that perfect participles in this respect are
crucially different from past participles, which are tenseless.
55
It has sometimes been argued that perfect participles, including the Swedish
supine form, do not denote anteriority and that the perfect tense semantics is contributed solely by the auxiliary (see e.g. Iatridou et al. 2001). The assumption is that
reduced relatives involve the same participle as perfects, and that any difference
between reduced relatives and perfects is due to the auxiliary. The fact that reduced
relatives and perfects have participles with different morphology in Swedish suggests that this is not the case; cf. (i) and (ii).
(i)
ett brev skrivet
av en känd
författare
a letter write.PTC.N.SG by a famous author
‘a letter written by a famous author’
(ii)
En känd
författare har skrivit
brevet.
a
famous author
has write.SUP the.letter
‘A famous author has written the letter.’
As we will see, past participles differ from perfect participles precisely by not asserting anteriority.
70
3.4. The semantics of the perfect
Arguments in favour of a biclausal structure of the perfect have been put
forward before, particularly in syntactically oriented studies (see e.g.
Kayne 1993, Taraldsen 1995, Alexiadou 1997 and Julien 2001, 2002).
However, the biclausal analysis as outlined so far runs into problems
with the restrictions on adverbial modification in languages like English
and Swedish (the so-called present perfect puzzle); if the present perfect
simply involves an embedded past tense, we would expect it to be
compatible with adverbials like yesterday. Moreover, it is not clear how
the biclausal analysis can account for the polysemy of the perfect. In this
section, I look closer at the semantics of the perfect. In section 3.5, I
turn to the restrictions on positional past time adverbials and suggest a
way to reconcile the biclausal analysis of the perfect with the semantics
of the perfect and resolve the present perfect puzzle. The fact that the
perfect involves a biclausal structure, and two assertion times, will be
important.
3.4.1. The readings of the perfect
At least since McCawley (1971), the following meanings of the perfect
have been distinguished (though the precise nature of the distinctions
varies): 56
(3:44)
a.
b.
c.
d.
Frida has visited Gothenburg many times. EXPERIENTIAL PERFECT
Since 2004, Frida has lived in Gothenburg. UNIVERSAL PERFECT
Frida has been sick (lately).
PERFECT OF RECENT PAST
Frida has just arrived.
RESULTATIVE PERFECT
The difference between the examples in (3:44) concerns how the event
time is located in relation to the Reichenbachian reference time; here,
the event time must be understood as a temporal interval and not a point
56
The terminology is from Iatridou et al. (2001), and partly follows McCawley
(1971), partly Comrie (1976). The term existential perfect is sometimes used as a
cover term for both resultative and experiential perfects and will therefore be
avoided here. The ‘hot news’ perfect of McCawley (1971) is often understood as a
subtype of the resultative, with a specific use. I prefer the pragmatically more neutral
term ‘perfect of recent past’ when referring to a perfect that is silent about the
inclusion of the reference time in the event time. Other types of perfects (such as the
stative present) have also been suggested; see e.g. Kiparsky (2002) and Pancheva
(2003) and references cited there.
71
in time. Experiential perfects like (3:44a) place the entire event time
anterior to reference time and therefore typically allow it to be repeated.57 The universal perfect in (3:44b), on the other hand, asserts that
the embedded predicate holds throughout the interval from 2004 until
now including its endpoints; i.e., Frida lived in Gothenburg in 2004, she
lives there now, and she has lived there during the entire interval
between 2004 and now. Hence, the event time is not completely in the
past of the reference time (the present) in the universal perfect, but
overlaps with it. The perfect of recent past in (3:44c) differs from both
experiential and universal perfect in that it is silent about whether the
embedded predicate holds at reference time or not (see Iatridou et al.
2001:161). In the resultative perfect in (3:44d), the transition (the
arrival) precedes reference time, but its result still holds. The resultative
perfect requires a telic predicate, i.e. a predicate with an inherent endpoint. All four meanings are available also in Swedish; see (3:45).58
(3:45)
a.
b.
c.
d.
Frida har besökt Göteborg
många gånger.
Frida has visited Gothenburg many times
‘Frida has visited Gothenburg many times.’
Sedan 2004 har hon bott i Göteborg.
since 2004 has she lived in Gothenburg
‘Since 2004, she has lived in Gothenburg.’
Hon har varit sjuk (den senaste tiden).
she has been sick the latest the.time
‘She has been sick (lately).’
Hon har just kommit hem.
she has just come home
‘She has just come home.’
In a Reichenbach-style analysis, where the perfect is assumed to place
the event time anterior to the reference time, the universal reading of the
perfect is often accounted for in terms of vagueness with regard to the
57
As pointed out by e.g. McCawley (1981) and Kiparsky (2002), the experiential
perfect is often associated with the presupposition that the eventuality can be
repeated. It is well known that the present perfect is unacceptable if the topic of the
sentence cannot be a participant in present eventualities (the so-called life-time
effect). Hence, the sentence in (i) is only acceptable if Princeton is the topic (e.g. in
a discussion of what people have visited Princeton).
(i) Einstein has visited Princeton.
(Chomsky 1971:212)
58 All the examples involve present perfects, but the different readings are possible
also in past, future and non-finite perfects and are thus independent of the tense of
the auxiliary; cf. e.g. Pancheva (2003:278).
72
inclusion of the reference time (e.g. Klein 1992, Julien 2001); the
different readings are assumed to be a consequence of pragmatic factors.
This is what the analysis of the perfect as a non-finite past tense might
suggest. Julien (2001), for example, points out that also a finite past
tense is compatible with a reading where the event time holds at the
speech time; consider the example in (3:46).
Han var i trädgården för en stund sedan (och där är han
he was in the.garden for a while ago
and there is he
troligen fortfarande).
probably still
‘He was in the garden a while ago (and he is probably still there).’
(3:46)
There are, however, several reasons to assume that the inclusion of the
reference time in the event time is not a question of vagueness in the
universal perfect, and that the perfect tense in this respect differs from
the simple past tense. First, there are languages (e.g. Hungarian and
Bulgarian) that have a morphological distinction between the different
perfects (see Kiparsky 1998, 2002, Iatridou et al. 2001 and Pancheva
2003). Compare the Bulgarian examples in (3:47); (3:47a) is an experiential perfect and has a participle with perfective morphology, and
(3:47b) is a universal perfect with an imperfective participle.
(3:47)
a.
b.
Marija (*vinagi) e obiknala
Ivan.
Maria always
is love.PERF.PTC
Ivan
‘Maria has (*always) fallen in love with Ivan.’
Marija vinagi e običala
Ivan
Maria always is love.IMPF.PTC
Ivan
‘Maria has always loved Ivan.’
(Iatridou et al. 2001:172)
Moreover, languages like Greek lack the universal perfect and therefore
do not allow adverbials like always in the perfect tense; consider the
examples in (3:48).
(3:48)
Echo
(*panta) zisi stin
have.1SG always
lived in.the
‘I have (*always) lived in Athens.’
(cf. Iatridou et al. 2001:170)
Athina.
Athens
Also in English, the universal and the experiential readings can be
shown to have partly different semantics. As pointed out by e.g. Mittwoch (1988) and Kiparsky (2002), examples like (3:49a) are not vague
with respect to the experiential and the universal reading, but ambigu-
73
ous. Only the universal reading survives when the adverbial is preposed,
as in (3:49b) (cf. Dowty 1979:343).
(3:49)
a.
b.
I have been in Hyderabad since 1977.
Since 1977, I have been in Hyderabad.
The experiential reading excludes the present, whereas the universal
reading includes it by assertion. On the experiential reading, (3:49a) is
false if I was in Hyderabad in 1977 and have not been there since; it is
false even if I am in Hyderabad at the moment of speech but was last
there in 1977. On the universal reading, on the other hand, (3:49a) (and
(3:49b)) is only true if the speaker was in Hyderabad in 1977, is there at
the time of speech, and has been there during the entire interval between
1977 and now. In the universal perfect, the inclusion of the reference
time in the event time cannot be cancelled; cf. (3:50) and (3:51).
(3:50)
I have been in Hyderabad since 1977, but I am not there now.
(3:51)
Since 1977, I have been in Hyderabad #but I am not there now.
(Kiparsky 2002:118)
Hence, there is reason to assume (partly) different semantics for the different readings. To come to terms with the universal perfect, McCoard
(1978) suggests that the present perfect denotes an interval (an
Extended-Now) which starts in the past and extends to the present;
importantly, the Extended-Now includes the speech time. In the next
section, I present the Extended-Now analysis by Iatridou et al. (2001)
and Pancheva (2003). In section 3.5.2, we will see how their account
can be reconciled with the syntax of the perfect assumed here.
3.4.2. The perfect time span
Iatridou et al. (2001) and Pancheva (2003) argue that the perfect
introduces an interval, the perfect time span (PTS), in which the time of
the eventuality can be partially or completely contained, much like the
assertion time intervals above.59 However, unlike the assertion time in
the simple past, the present perfect denotes an interval which starts in
the past and extends to the present, including the speech time. It is
59
Rothstein (2008) elaborates on this account of the perfect in a comparative
study of German, English and Swedish.
74
therefore compatible with certain present tense adverbials. The right
boundary of the perfect time span corresponds to the Reichenbachian
reference time. We can represent the simple past and the present perfect
as in (3:52); the assertion time is represented with simple square
brackets, the perfect time span with barred double brackets, and the
speech time as S.60
(3:52)
a.
b.
The simple past:
———[——]———S→
The present perfect:
———[[—————S]]→
There are contexts where either a present perfect or a simple past can be
used, with little difference in meaning. Consider the examples in (3:53)
which are both perfectly fine in a context where two people are just
getting into the car to go on holiday.
(3:53)
a.
b.
Jag glömde att stänga av spisen.
I
forgot to turn off the.stove
‘I forgot to turn off the stove.’
Jag har glömt
att stänga av spisen.
I
have forgotten to turn
off the.stove
‘I have forgotten to turn off the stove.’
The difference between the examples is that in the simple past in (3:53a)
an assertion is made about a past time interval, which is linked to the
speech event by the context, whereas in (3:53b) an assertion is made
about an interval that reaches from the past to the present, and includes
the present. Note that nothing excludes that the event time is the same in
both cases.
60
The semantics of the perfect is given in (i); cf. the simple past in (ii) which
simply places the assertion time before an evaluation time, which in the case of a
matrix clause is the speech time (from Pancheva 2003:284).
(i) The perfect:
[[PERFECT]] = λpλi∃i' [PTS (i', i) & p(i')]
PTS (i', i) iff i is a final subinterval of i'
(Pancheva 2003:284)
(ii) The simple past:
[[PAST]] = λpλi∃i' [i' < i & p(i')]
for any i ∈ I, the set of temporal intervals
(Pancheva 2003:282)
75
Whether the perfect or the simple past is preferred can vary depending on language and context (and linguistic community). As pointed out
by Faarlund et al. (1997:567), Norwegian tends to prefer the perfect
rather than the preterite in examples such as (3:54). In English, on the
other hand, the preterite is preferred; the translation of (3:54) is (3:55).
Swedish patterns with Norwegian.
(3:54)
Har du sovet godt?
have you slept
well
(Faarlund et al. 1997:567)
(3:55)
Did you sleep well?
In other cases, either the simple past or the present perfect is excluded
both in English and Swedish. Since the perfect time span includes the
speech time in the present perfect, it cannot be modified with a positional past time adverbial (see below). On the other hand, the simple
past excludes the present; consider the difference between (3:56a) and
(3:56b). The simple past in (3:56a) conveys that the life span lies completely in the past (i.e. that she is not alive), whereas the present perfect
in (3:56b) is only compatible with a reading where she is still alive (and
living in Stockholm).
(3:56)
a.
b.
Hon bodde i Stockholm i
hela
sitt
liv.
she lived
in Stockholm for whole POSS.REFL life
‘She lived in Stockholm her whole life.’
Hon har bott i Stockholm i hela
sitt
liv.
she has lived in Stockholm for whole POSS.REFL life
‘She has lived in Stockholm her whole life.’
The perfect time span should not be confused with the interval between
the event time and the reference time in the Reichenbachian framework,
as it does not specify an interval between the time of an eventuality and
a reference point (Iatridou et al. 2001:169). Instead, the left boundary of
the perfect time span is set by an explicit or implicit adverbial. In this
way, a perfect like 0 has a perfect time span that starts before the event
time (located in 1993): it extends from 1991 until the present; the E_R
interval, on the other hand, ranges from 1993 to the present.
(3:57)
Since 1991, I have been to Cape Cod only once, namely in the fall of
1993.
Perfect time span:
—[[1991——Fall 1993———S]]→
E_R interval:
————— [Fall 1993———S]→
76
In the next section, I review how this analysis can account for the different readings of the perfect.
3.4.3. Deriving the readings of the perfect
I have suggested that the perfect is a non-finite past tense, which combined with a matrix finite present or past tense has a present or past perfect reading. Hence, the perfect does not contribute aspectual meaning
(boundedness or unboundedness). In languages like English, it can be
combined with either bounded or unbounded aspect; consider e.g. the
perfect of the progressive in (3:58) below. Progressive morphology is
required for a universal perfect of a non-stative verb; cf. (3:59) which is
ungrammatical on the universal reading.
(3:58)
(3:59)
Since this morning, he has been reading the newspaper.
* Since this morning, he has read the newspaper.
Iatridou et al. (2001) and Pancheva (2003) suggest that the different
readings of the perfect depend on how outer aspect combines with the
perfect (the perfect time span); just like the event time is partly or completely contained within the assertion time in the simple tenses, it is
partly or completely contained within the perfect time span in the perfect. The difference between the simple and the complex tenses is just a
question of the extension of the interval that contains the event time.
First, consider the universal perfect in (3:60) and the Swedish version
in (3:61).
(3:60)
At two o’clock, she had been writing for at least an hour.
(3:61)
Klockan
the.clock
två hade hon skrivit i åtminstone en timme.
two had she written for at.least
an hour
The universal perfect can be represented as in (3:62) below (cf. the simple tenses discussed in section 3.3.1 above); + represents the event of
writing, the barred double brackets the perfect time span. Iatridou et al.
(2001) assume that the adverbial at two o’clock specifies the right
boundary of the perfect time span, which corresponds to the Reichenbachian reference time.
(3:62)
———++[[++++++++]]++———S→
Right boundary = at two o’clock
77
Since the perfect embeds the progressive (unbounded aspect), the perfect time span is a subset of the event time. Hence, the universal perfect
asserts that the eventuality is ongoing at the right boundary of the perfect time span. (For the precise semantics, see Pancheva 2003:285ff.)
Bounded aspect, on the other hand, sets up the event time as a subset
of the perfect time span, and therefore yields an experiential reading, as
in the examples in (3:63) (cf. Pancheva 2003:286). The experiential
reading can be represented as in (3:64).
(3:63)
a.
b.
At two o’clock, she had written a page.
Klockan två hade hon skrivit en sida.
the.clock two had she written a page
———— [[—++++++++—]]———S→
Right boundary = at two o’clock
(3:64)
Iatridou et al. (2001:176) suggest that the universal reading is unavailable in Greek since Greek perfect participles are morphologically specified as perfective. The morphological distinctions between the different
perfects in languages like Hungarian and Bulgarian can also be understood as depending on the aspectual morphology. In Bulgarian, a perfect
with perfective morphology only has the resultative perfect reading,
whereas the experiential and universal readings require neutral or imperfective morphology (see Pancheva 2003).
In English, progressive morphology is compatible with a reading
where the eventuality does not hold at the right boundary of the perfect
time span, and a universal reading seems to require the presence of a
durative adverbial; cf. (3:65a) which does not assert that she is currently
working and (3:65b) which does (see further e.g. Iatridou et al. 2001,
Kiparsky 2002 and references cited there).
(3:65)
a.
b.
She has been working.
For an hour, she has been working.
To account for the ambiguity of progressive morphology, Pancheva
(2003) assumes that it can have neutral aspect (cf. Smith 1991). Neutral
aspect merely refers to the beginning of an event and not to its endpoint,
and is therefore vague with respect to the inclusion of the end-point of
the event time in the assertion time/perfect time span. For the present
purposes, a discussion of the precise semantics of unbounded aspect and
the progressive would lead to far afield (but see e.g. Higginbotham 2004
and references cited there). In the following, I assume that unbounded
78
aspect yields a reading where the event time is not asserted to be completely contained within the assertion time, and that it therefore is compatible with a reading where some part of the event time lies outside the
assertion time. I leave neutral aspect aside.
Pancheva (2003) introduces a resultative aspect as an aspect that only
selects for telic events. With a perfect, it yields a resultative perfect; it
asserts that the event has culminated and that its target state holds at the
end point of the perfect time span; cf. (3:66a) and the corresponding
Swedish example in (3:66b), which convey that the target state of the
glasses being lost holds at present. The resultative perfect can be represented as in (3:67), where + represents the transition and × the target
state.
(3:66)
a.
b.
Frida has just lost her glasses.
Frida har just tappat sina glasögon.
Frida has just lost
her glasses
———— [[—++×××S]]×——→
(3:67)
The resultative perfect has often been assumed to be a subtype of the experiential perfect (see e.g. McCawley 1981). However, Kiparsky (2002)
points out that the resultative perfect cannot trigger a tense shift from
present to past in subordinate clauses, unlike experiential and universal
perfects; cf. (3:68a) and (3:68b–c).
(3:68)
a.
b.
c.
I have finally realized that the earth is/#was round. RESULTATIVE
I have always known that the earth is/was round.
UNIVERSAL
I have often thought that the earth is/was round.
EXPERIENTIAL
(from Kiparsky 2002:121)
In chapter 6, I suggest that en-participles can have resultative and
bounded aspect also outside the perfect. This will be of some importance for the understanding of the historical development of the perfect.
3.4.4. Conclusion
The analysis of the perfect outlined above has the advantage of accounting for the homonymy of the different readings of the perfect, as
well as the partly shared semantics. It assumes that the different readings of the perfect all involve a common component which introduces a
perfect time span present in all perfects. The difference between the pre-
79
sent and the past perfect lies in the tense of the matrix clause. The different readings of the perfect, on the other hand, are a consequence of
the value of a lower aspectual phrase. Consequently, the aspectual morphology of the participle can restrict the possible readings of the perfect.
In Greek, for example, the perfect participle has perfective morphology,
and the universal reading (which requires imperfective morphology) is
therefore excluded. From the historical point of view, the analysis
allows us to view the development of the perfect as one change, rather
than as several partly independent developments. In the following, I
adopt the analysis by Iatridou et al. (2001) and Pancheva (2003) with
regard to the perfect time span, and I assume that the different readings
of the perfect depend on aspect (e.g. bounded and unbounded aspect).
However, unlike Iatridou et al. (2001) and Pancheva (2003), I derive the
perfect time span with a biclausal structure.
3.5. The present perfect puzzle, the perfect time span and the
auxiliary
I have analysed the perfect as a non-finite past tense. Yet, in languages
like English and Swedish, positional past time adverbials like yesterday
are disallowed (with some exceptions; see below). In this section, I
address this puzzle as well as the question how the perfect time span can
be derived, given that perfects have a biclausal structure and that the
perfect time span is not introduced by a specific functional element.
The section is organized as follows. First, I introduce the problem of
the restrictions on adverbial modifications, and present a solution to it in
terms of the right boundary of the perfect time span that has been proposed in the literature. Secondly, I suggest a way to derive the perfect
time span by means of the elements present in the biclausal perfect and
briefly discuss adverbial modification in the past perfect.
3.5.1. The present perfect puzzle and the perfect time span
As noted, positional past time adverbials are ungrammatical in the present perfect in languages like Swedish and English; consider again the
examples in (3:5) and (3:6) above (repeated as (3:69) and (3:70) below).
80
(3:69)
a.
Frida
Frida
b. * Frida
Frida
åt
ate
har
has
ett äpple igår/förra veckan.
an apple yesterday/last week
ätit
ett äpple igår/förra veckan.
eaten an apple yesterday/last week
(3:70)
a. Frida ate an apple yesterday/last week.
b. * Frida has eaten an apple yesterday/last week.
In past perfects, on the other hand, a past time adverbial is generally ambiguous between a reading where it specifies a reference time and a
reading where it appears to specify the event time; cf. (3:71a) and
(3:71b) (cf. Klein 1992:327).61
(3:71)
a.
b.
Igår
kom Frida till Peters kontor klockan
sex.
yesterday came Frida to Peter’s office the.clock six
Men Peter hade gått hem klockan sex.
but Peter had gone home the.clock six
‘Yesterday Frida came to Peter’s office at six o’clock. But Peter had
gone home at six o’clock.’
Right boundary = six o’clock
E(leaving) < six o’clock
Igår
kom Frida till Peters kontor klockan
sju.
yesterday came Frida to Peter’s office the.clock seven
Men Peter hade gått hem klockan sex.
but Peter had gone home the.clock six
‘Yesterday Frida came to Peter’s office at seven o’clock. But Peter
had gone home at six o’clock.’
Right boundary = seven o’clock
E(leaving) = six o’clock
(cf. Klein 1992:327)
61
Kiparsky (2002) suggests that the ambiguity of adverbials in the past perfects
depends on the fact that the perfect is ambiguous between a resultative and an
experiential perfect reading. This predicts that adverbials are not ambiguous when
the embedded predicate is atelic (since atelic predicates disallow the resultative
reading). This prediction is not borne out; cf. the examples in (i), which are both
ambiguous between the two readings (also cf. Rothstein 2008:125 on positional
adverbials in the German present perfect).
(i) a. Hon hade tvättat klockan
fem.
she had washed the.clock five
‘She had washed at five o’clock.’
b. Hon hade varit i Stockholm år
2007.
she had been in Stockholm year 2007
‘She had been to Stockholm in 2007.’
81
If the adverbial specifies the event time in examples like (3:71b), it is
unexpected that it cannot do so in the present perfect, hence the puzzle.
In the following, I therefore assume that positional past time adverbials
never relate to the event time, despite the appearance of examples like
(3.71b). Instead, I suggest that they always relate to the assertion time
interval established by aspect (cf. e.g. Pancheva & von Stechow 2004). I
return to the ambiguity of past perfects below.
An account of the present perfect puzzle must not only explain why
positional past time adverbials are excluded in present perfects but ambiguous in past perfects, it should also say something about the crosslinguistic variation. As noted, the German present perfect is compatible
with positional past time adverbials; see (3:72).
(3:72)
a.
b.
Er
he
Er
he
hat
has
ist
is
gestern
yesterday
gestern
yesterday
gearbeitet.
worked
angekommen.
arrived
It has often been assumed that German perfect morphology expresses
either a perfect or a simple past tense. However, as pointed out by Rothstein (2008:26), the simple past tense is not always exchangeable with a
perfect tense in German, and the perfect does not behave just like a
simple past tense (see Giorgi & Pianesi 1997 for similar arguments for
Italian).62 Consider the examples in (3:73) below, where only the
preterite is possible (Rothstein 2008:26f.; data originally from Wunderlich 1970:139).
(3:73)
a.
Wir kamen über die Autostrada nach Florenz, das
in
we came via the Autostrada to
Florence which in
einem breitem Tal lag.
a
wide
valley lay
‘We reached Florence, which was situated in a wide valley, via the
Autostrada.’
b. * Wir kamen über die Autostrada nach Florenz, das
in
we came via the Autostrada to
Florence which in
einem breiten Tal
gelegen hat.
a
wide
valley lain
had
(Rothstein 2008:26f.)
Hence, the difference between languages like Swedish or English and
languages like German cannot be accounted for by the assumption that
62
Here and in the following, I disregard dialects that have lost the morphological
preterite completely.
82
the German perfect morphology is ambiguous between a perfect and a
past tense reading.
To account for the present perfect puzzle, Pancheva & von Stechow
(2004) propose a modification (and weakening) of the semantics of the
perfect as suggested by Iatridou et al. (2001) and Pancheva (2003). They
argue that the perfect time span need not include the speech time in the
present perfect in languages like German; instead, the present perfect
sets up an interval that does not extend after a reference time (cf. also
Rothstein 2008). In English and Swedish, on the other hand, the reference time is necessarily included in the perfect time span. The difference
between German and English can be illustrated as in (3:74) and (3:75)
below; the barred double brackets represent the perfect time span.
(3:74)
The German present perfect:
a. ———— [[——]]———S→
b. ———— [[—————S]]→
(3:75)
The English present perfect:
———— [[—————S]]→
While the perfect time span can, but need not, include the speech time in
the German present perfect, it necessarily does so in English. If past
positional adverbials always relate to the perfect time span and never to
the event time, this account can explain why they are possible in
German but not in English; I return to this below.
By weakening the semantics of the perfect in languages like German,
but maintaining the stronger semantics for languages like English,
Pancheva & von Stechow (2004) can account also for the difference between English and German illustrated in (3:76) below. In German but
not in English, a universal perfect is compatible with a reading where
the eventuality ends before the speech time, even if it holds throughout
the perfect time span.
(3:76)
a.
b.
I have always lived here (*… until recently).
Ich habe hier immer gewohnt… bis vor kurzem
I
have here always lived
until recently
(Pancheva & von Stechow 2004 ex. (20)–(21))
Pancheva & von Stechow (2004) suggest that the difference between
languages like German, on the one hand, and languages like English, on
the other, is a question of the properties of the present tense. It is well
known that the English present tense is restricted, and that it has a more
83
specified semantics than the present tense in languages like German.
While the English present introduces a temporal interval which is
coextensive with the speech time, the German present introduces an
interval of which no part is anterior to the speech time. In German, the
present tense can therefore have a future reading; cf. 0. In English, on
the other hand, a future reading of the present is highly restricted; cf. 0.
(3:77)
a.
Nächste Woche ist das Wetter schlecht.
next
week
is
the weather bad
‘Next week the weather will be bad.’
(Pancheva & von Stechow 2004 ex. (11)).
(3:78)
a. # Fred is sick in 10 days.
b. # It is raining next week.
(Pancheva & von Stechow 2004 ex. (10)).
The analysis in Pancheva & von Stechow (2004) has the advantage of
relating the difference between German and English with regard to the
present perfect to the well-known difference in the semantics of the
present tense. However, as pointed out by Rothstein (2008), the analysis
does not explain why the Scandinavian languages behave like English
with regard to positional adverbials and universal perfects; the Swedish
present tense shares the semantics with the German present, and not
with English. Like the German present, the Swedish present tense can
have a future reading, and, as noted, the present perfect can have a
future reference time; cf. (3:79).
(3:79)
a.
b.
Hon åker
imorgon klockan
två.
she leaves tomorrow the.clock two
‘She will leave tomorrow at two o’clock.’
Hon har åkt imorgon klockan
två.
she has left tomorrow the.clock two
‘She will have left tomorrow at two o’clock.’
The other Scandinavian languages pattern with Swedish and German;
cf. Icelandic in (3:80), Norwegian in (3:81), and Danish in (3:82).
(3:80)
a.
b.
Á morgun kemur Fríða.
tomorrow comes Frida
‘Tomorrow Frida will come.’
á morgun hefur hann lifað í
nákvæmlega 17 ár
tomorrow has he lived for exactly
17 years
‘Tomorrow he will have lived for exactly 17 years.’
(Google)
84
(3:81)
a.
b.
(3:82)
a.
b.
I morgen er jeg på Lillehammer.
tomorrow am I
on Lillehammer
‘Tomorrow I will be in Lillehammer.’
Neste torsdag
har vi
levert
innstillingen.
next
Thursday have we handed.in the.proposition
‘Next Thursday, we will have handed in the proposition.’
(Faarlund et al. 1997:568, 571)
I morgen kommer et nyt barn.
tomorrow comes
a new child
‘Tomorrow, a new child will come.’
(Google)
I morgen har verden
ændret
sig
tomorrow has the.world changed REFL
‘Tomorrow, the world will have changed.’
(Google)
However, with regard to positional past time adverbials, the Scandinavian languages pattern with English rather than with German; cf. Swedish in (3:83), Icelandic in (3:84), Norwegian in (3:85), and Danish in
(3:86).63
(3:83)
a. * Igår
yesterday
b. * Jag har
I
have
har Peter kommit hit.
has Peter come here
pratat med honom igår
kväll.
talked to
him
yesterday night
(3:84)
a. * Jón
hefur verið þarna í gær.
John has been there yesterday
b. * Ég hef bakað köku í gær.
I
have baked cake yesterday
‘I have baked a cake yesterday’
63
There appears to be variation in Danish. According to Bjerrum (1931–32:119),
there are Danish dialects with a perfect that has the properties of the German perfect;
Bjerrum refers to this as a foreign phenomenon. Jespersen (1924) states that positional past time adverbials are grammatical in clause final position, but not in initial
position; cf. (ia) and (ib).
(i) a. * Igår
har
jeg set ham.
yesterday have I seen him
b.
Jeg har set ham igår.
I have seen him yesterday
(cf. Jespersen 1924:271)
Examples like (ib) are, however, not accepted by all my informants.
85
(3:85)
a. * Igår
natt har jeg sovet godt.
yesterday night have I
slept well
b. * Jeg har snakket med han i går
kveld.
I
have talked to
him yesterday night
(Faarlund et al. 1997:566)
(3:86)
a. * Han er kommet i går.
he is come yesterday
b. * I går
nat har Ole sovet.
Yesterday night has Ole slept
There are certain well-defined contexts where the adverbials are more
generally possible in the Scandinavian languages. In particular, so-called
inferential perfects allow positional past time adverbials; cf. Swedish in
(3:87) and Icelandic in (3:88). I return to these contexts in section 3.6.2
below.
(3:87)
Han har (tydligen) varit sjuk igår.
he has apparently been sick yesterday
‘Apparently, he was sick yesterday.’
(3:88)
Jón hefur verið fullur þegar hann sagði þetta.
John has been drunk when he said this
‘John was probably drunk when he said this.’
(Thráinsson 2005:363)
In Swedish, there is some limited variation between speakers with regard to the acceptability of positional past time adverbials, and examples
such as (3:89) do occur, however rarely (see SAG 1999, 4:238; cf. Lindström & Wide 2001). There is no corresponding variation in the availability of future readings of the present tense.
(3:89)
Klippan som tidigare varit delvis dold
av träd och buskar
the.cliff that earlier been partly hidden by trees and bushes
har 1987 frilagts.
has 1987 uncover.SUP.PASS
‘The cliff that earlier [had] been partly hidden by trees and bushes
was uncovered in 1987.’
(SAG 1999, 4:238)
It seems likely that examples like (3:89) should be treated together with
the historical present, which also allows positional past time adverbials;
cf. (3:90) (and see SAG 1999, 4:239).64
64
Schaden (2008) point to similar examples in English; see (i).
86
På hösten 1986 beslutar
hon att frilägga
klippan.
in
the.fall 1986 decide.PRES she to
uncover
the.cliff
Arbetet
påbörjas
i april 1987.
the.work start.PRES.PASS in April 1987
‘In the fall of 1986, she decides to uncover the cliff. The work is
started in April 1987.’
(3:90)
Disregarding the well-defined modal contexts and contexts that allow a
historical present tense, positional past time adverbials are not possible
in the Scandinavian languages.
Also with regard to the universal perfect, Swedish patterns with English rather than with German. In the universal present perfect the event
time necessarily holds in the present; cf. Swedish in (3:91) with German
in (3:92). In other words, the perfect time span must include the reference time in Swedish, as in English; this has previously been argued
by Rothstein (2008).65
a.
(3:91)
Jag har alltid bott här (#tills nyligen).
I
have always lived here until recently
‘I have always lived here (#until recently).’
(i) We have received information on F.S. from you on the 22nd of September last.
(Schaden 2008:544)
65 The Swedish data are not clear-cut. The adverbial alltid ‘always’ is sometimes
compatible with a reading where the event time does not overlap with the time set
by tense; cf. (i). These examples might involve an implicit adverbial förut ‘before’.
Importantly, alltid does not force a universal reading of the perfect, but is
compatible with experiential readings; cf. (ii).
(i) Jag har
alltid
I
have always
flyttade jag till
moved
I
to
(ii) Jag
I
bott i Stockholm (förut), #(men) nyligen
lived in Stockholm before but
recently
Göteborg.
Gothenburg
har
alltid skrivit brev.
have always written letters
An adverbial meaning ever since, gives sharper judgements:
(iii)
Jag har bott här ända sedan jag var barn
I
have lived here ever since I
was child
(#men jag flyttade 1999).
but
I
moved 1999
‘I have lived here ever since I was a child (#but I moved in 1999).’
87
b.
(3:92)
Hon har alltid
bott i Frankrike. (#1999 flyttade hon
she has always lived in France
1999
moved she
till Tyskland.)
to Germany
‘She has always lived here. (# In 1999 she moved to Germany.)’
(cf. Rothstein 2008:37)
Véronique hat immer in Frankreich gewohnt.
Véronique has always in France
lived
1999 ist sie nach Deutschland gezogen.
1999 is
she to
Germany
moved
‘Véronique always lived in France. In 1999, she moved to Germany.’
(Rothstein 2008:38)
While I follow Pancheva & von Stechow (2004) and Rothstein (2008) in
assuming that the difference between the Scandinavian languages and
English, on the one hand, and German, on the other, can be understood
in terms of the extension of the perfect time span, I suggest that this
does not depend on the present tense, but on the properties of the
temporal auxiliary.66
3.5.2. The perfect time span, the biclausal perfect and the contribution
of HAVE
Under the biclausal analysis of the perfect outlined in section 3.3.2
above, there is no individual element (e.g. a Perfect head) that introduces the perfect time span. The semantics of the perfect must therefore
depend on the combination of elements and their interaction. I repeat the
structure of a (present or past) perfect in (3:93) below.
66
Rothstein (2008) tentatively suggests that the difference between the languages
with regard to positional past time adverbials depends on whether the auxiliary
asymmetrically c-commands the participle or not, but he does not develop this
further.
88
(3:93)
The present or past perfect:
CP
T 1P
C
ZP
EVT 1
Asp1P
T1
ZP
AST 1
Voice1P
Asp1
ZP
E1
V 1P
Voice 1
HAVE
T 2P
ZP
EVT 2
Asp2P
T2
ZP
AST 2
Voice 2P
Asp 2
ZP
E2
Voice2
V2P
A present or past perfect involves two separate assertion time intervals,
one which the non-finite tense places anterior to the evaluation time, and
one which lies in present in the case of a present perfect. In the following, I identify the perfect time span with the assertion time (AST2) of
the participial clause. The matrix assertion time (AST1), on the other
hand, corresponds to the Reichenbachian reference time (though it is an
interval and not a point in time). The value of the lower AspP determines the reading of the perfect; bounded aspect yields an experiential
perfect, unbounded aspect a universal perfect (in the presence of a
durative adverbial) or a perfect of recent past, and resultative aspect a
resultative perfect. The higher AspP presumably always carries unbounded aspect, but since HAVE is a stative verb, the progressive is excluded in English. In Greek, the auxiliary HAVE always has imperfective morphology (Alexiadou 1997:97).
This account straightforwardly derives one of the possible readings of
the present perfect in German, namely the reading where the perfect
time span lies completely in the past (as it does in (3:92) above). This
89
reading can be illustrated as in (3:94) below (cf. (3:74a) above); the
barred double brackets represent AST2 (the perfect time span), while the
single brackets represent the matrix assertion time (AST1), which in the
present perfect lies in the present (or in the future; see below).
One reading of the German present perfect:
———— [[——]]———[—S—]→
(3:94)
Now, consider positional past time adverbials. I have assumed that
positional past time adverbials always relate to the assertion time and
never to the event time (see above). Specifically, an adverbial like
yesterday places the assertion time within the interval of yesterday. Consider e.g. the example in (3:95), where the assertion time lies within
yesterday; the assertion time, in turn, contains the event time.
She read the paper yesterday.
(3:95)
In the German present perfect, AST2 can lie completely in the past of the
speech time and may therefore be included in the interval specified by
an adverbial like yesterday. Positional past time adverbials are therefore
possible in the German present perfect.
The restriction on positional past time adverbials in languages like
English and Swedish, on the other hand, poses a challenge to the biclausal analysis. I will assume that the relevant difference between languages like English and Swedish and languages like German relates to
the semantics of HAVE. The verb HAVE is often assumed to be composed of BE + a prepositional element. According to Kayne (1993), one
of the possible realizations of the element that incorporates into BE to
form HAVE is the preposition in. We can assume that the verb HAVE
(or the preposition that it includes) can denote inclusion (on one of its
readings); cf. (3:96) where the Possessors (the cup and the city, respectively) include the Possessums (the ear and the poor neighbourhoods,
respectively). With inanimate subjects, the relation is necessarily one of
inalienable possession; that is, the possessed element is necessarily a
part of the Possessor (cf. Postma 1997:278 and Uriagereka 1998).
(3:96)
a.
b.
The cup has an ear.
The city has poor neighbourhoods.
I suggest that also temporal HAVE denotes inclusion, at least in languages like English and Swedish, namely the inclusion of the matrix assertion time (AST1) in the embedded, participial assertion time (AST2).
90
Possessive and temporal HAVE thus differ with respect to the argument
of the prepositional element: with possessive HAVE, the preposition
takes DP arguments, with temporal HAVE, it takes temporal (ZP)
arguments. In this way, the preposition of HAVE is just like many other
prepositions; cf. e.g. the book on the table where on takes DP arguments, and do it on Thursday where it takes temporal arguments. I
return to the precise syntax of HAVE in chapter 9 below, where I suggest that the difference between the temporal auxiliary in languages like
German and the temporal auxiliary in languages like Swedish and
English is the presence/absence of the temporal preposition.
On this account, the perfect time span, which according to Pancheva
& von Stechow (2004) necessarily includes the speech time in the present perfect, is derived as a combination of two assertion times with the
semantics of HAVE. The English and Swedish perfect can in this way
be represented as in (3:97); the barred double brackets represent AST2
and the simple brackets AST1.
(3:97)
——[[—— [——]]]——→
If the event time holds throughout AST2, it will necessarily hold
throughout AST1; this yields a universal perfect. The universal perfect in
(3:98) can thus be represented as in (3:99), where + represents the event
time.
(3:98)
Han har sprungit i
minst en timme nu.
he has run
for at.least an hour now
‘He has been running for at least an hour now.’
(3:99)
——++[[++[++]]]++——→
In the present perfect, neither of the assertion times lies completely in
the past, and neither can therefore be included in the interval of a
positional past time adverbial.
The question is how the external argument (EVT2) of the non-finite T
is construed. I suggested above that it is interpreted relative to the event
time of the matrix verb (HAVE). Since the aspect of HAVE presumably
is unbounded, the event time of HAVE includes AST1; if the non-finite
tense placed AST2 strictly before the event time of HAVE, AST2 would
also lie strictly before AST1, and AST1 could not be included in AST2, as
I have suggested.
Now, it is sometimes argued that the speech time should be viewed as
a point in time, and not as an interval (see e.g. Giorgi & Pianesi 1997:
91
157ff., Cowper 1998); we can assume that the evaluation time in a
simple finite clause is set as a point within the speech event. In a parallel
way, we can assume that the evaluation time of a non-finite tense is set
to some point within a matrix event time. Consequently, AST2 is placed
before some point within the event time of HAVE in a perfect, and,
since the aspect of HAVE is unbounded, this point does not necessarily
lie within AST1; AST1 can therefore be included in AST2. This gives us
a perfect like that in (3:100), where the barred double brackets represent
AST2, the simple brackets AST1, and + the event time of HAVE (the
participial event time is not included).
(3:100)
——[[— +[++]]]++——→
Here, I will assume that the right boundaries of the two assertion times
necessarily coincide, and that the matrix assertion time therefore is
interpreted as the final subinterval of the participial assertion time.67
Consider now the difference between English, on the one hand, and
the Scandinavian languages and German on the other, with regard to
present perfects with a future reference time; cf. again the examples in
(3:11)–(3:13) above (repeated in (3:101)–(3:103)).
(3:101)
(3:102)
(3:103)
Nästa vecka har jag läst klart
boken.
next week have I read finished the.book
‘Next week, I will have finished reading the book.’
# Next week, I have finished reading the book.
Nächste Woche habe ich das Buch fertig gelesen.
next
week
have I
the book
finished read
‘Next week, I will have finished reading the book.’
As mentioned, the English present tense presumably introduces an
interval which is coextensive with the speech time (i.e., it is a point in
time), whereas the German and Scandinavian present tense has the value
[-PAST] and therefore states that AST does not precede the speech time
67
Without additional assumptions, nothing automatically excludes that the participial assertion time extends into the future of the matrix assertion time, as long as it
precedes some point within the time of HAVE. However, we know that the
boundaries of temporal intervals tend to be set in relation to other intervals (introduced e.g. by implicit or explicit temporal adverbials). A more elaborate account
should consider also the interpretation of non-finite present tenses and the temporal
interpretation of embedded finite clauses.
92
(in a matrix clause).68 Since German and the Scandinavian languages
thus allow AST1 to lie after the speech time in the present perfect (as in
the simple present), the present perfect can have a future reference time
(AST1).69
3.5.3. Positional adverbials in past perfects
As we saw above, positional past time adverbials can be ambiguous in
past perfects; consider again the examples in (3:71) above (repeated in
(3:104) below). In (3:104a), the adverbial klockan 6 ‘at six o’clock’
specifies the reference time. In (3:104b), on the other hand, it can appear
to modify the event time. However, if this were actually the case, there
would be no way of excluding positional past time adverbials in the
present perfect; cf. (3:105) which is ungrammatical (disregarding a
reading where the adverbial specifies a time in the future).
(3:104) a.
b.
Igår
kom Frida till Peters kontor klockan
sex.
yesterday came Frida to
Peter’s office the.clock six
Men Peter hade gått hem klockan sex.
but Peter had gone home the.clock six
‘Yesterday Frida came to Peter’s office at six o’clock. But Peter had
gone home at six o’clock.’
RB = six o’clock
E(leaving) < six o’clock
Igår
kom Frida till Peters kontor klockan
sju.
yesterday came Frida to Peter’s office the.clock seven
Men Peter hade gått hem klockan sex.
but Peter had gone home the.clock six
‘Yesterday Frida came to Peter’s office at seven o’clock. But Peter
had gone home at six o’clock.’
RB = seven o’clock
E(leaving) = six o’clock
(cf. Klein 1992:327)
68
The present account is compatible with analyses that argue that English present
morphology has perfective marking (Giorgi & Pianesi 1997), as well as with
analyses in terms of a generic operator (Chierchia 1995, Alexiadou 1997:100f.).
69 In English, a future reading of the present is possible if the eventuality is planned and certain to happen, as in (i). The present perfect, on the other hand, can never
have a future reference time, presumably since the eventuality denoted by the
auxiliary HAVE cannot be planned and certain to happen; cf. (ii).
(i)
The train leaves at two o’clock this afternoon.
(ii) * The train has left at two o’clock this afternoon.
93
(3:105)
* Peter har gått hem klockan sex.
Peter has gone home the.clock six
(Six o’clock < S)
Pancheva & von Stechow (2004) tie the restriction on positional adverbials in English to the semantics of the present tense, and the present
perfect can therefore have properties different from those of the past
perfect. According to Pancheva & von Stechow, the English past perfect
is just like the German present perfect: the perfect time need not include
the reference time. The ambiguity of an adverbial relates to the extension of the perfect time span. In my account of the perfect, this can
hardly be maintained. Since the properties of the perfect are tied to the
semantics of the auxiliary, we do not expect the matrix tense to affect
the possibility of adverbial modification.
In the analysis in Pancheva & von Stechow (2004), universal past
perfects in English and Swedish should behave like universal present
perfects in German, since they should allow the perfect time span to end
before the time set by tense. This does not appear to be the case; cf.
(3:106) and (3:107) which are both infelicitous with an adverbial that
expresses that the participial event time ended before the time set by the
matrix clause.70
70
Like Pancheva & von Stechow, Rothstein (2008) assumes that the perfect time
span need not include the reference time in the past perfect in Swedish and English.
He bases this on examples like (i) and (ii) below (cf. Rothstein 2008:53).
(i)
(ii)
# Tills jag
until I
träffade en annan, har jag
met
another
have I
alltid älskat
always loved
Tills jag träffade en annan, hade jag alltid älskat
until I
met
another
had I always loved
‘Until I met someone else I had always loved you.’
dig.
you
dig.
you
However, these examples are not completely comparable. In (i) the adverbial
specifies a time that necessarily lies before the reference time (the adverbial involves
a past tense); in (ii) this is not necessarily the case (both the adverbial and the
auxiliary HAVE are in the past). With a present tense adverbial, also the present
perfect in (i) becomes available:
(iii)
Tills nu har jag alltid älskat
until now have I
always loved
‘Until now, I have always loved you.’
dig.
you
With an adverbial introduced by tills ‘until’, a universal perfect presumably expresses that the participial eventuality holds throughout AST2 and, hence, at the
reference time, but that it does not extend past AST2 and the reference time. In (ii)
94
(3:106)
Vid
at
för
for
den tiden
hade han alltid bott i Stockholm (#tills
that the.time had he always lived in Stockholm until
ett tag
sedan).
a while ago
(3:107)
At that time, he had always lived in Stockholm (#until some time
ago).
I therefore conclude that the perfect time span (AST2) always includes
the reference time (AST1) in languages like English and Swedish.
The ambiguity of positional past time adverbials in the past perfect is
actually predicted under the present account. Consider the representation
of the past perfect in (3:108) below, where there are two intervals which
can be specified by adverbials like yesterday. Since the matrix tense
places AST1 before the speech time in the past perfect, it can be a subset
of yesterday. AST2 includes AST1 but is still anterior to the speech time;
it too can be a subset of yesterday.
(3:108)
——[[—— [——]]]——S→
Consider the example in (3:109) which is ambiguous between a reading
where the departure took place before (some point within) yesterday and
a reading where it took place yesterday.
(3:109)
Hon hade åkt igår.
she had gone yesterday
‘She had gone yesterday.’
On the first reading, AST1 is included in yesterday, and AST2 partly
precedes yesterday. The eventuality lies within AST2 and need therefore
not have taken place yesterday. On the second reading, AST2 lies within
yesterday and the eventuality therefore necessarily does, too. The two
readings are illustrated in (3:110a) and (3:110b), respectively; + represents the participial event time. For simplicity, I have placed the entire
eventuality before AST1, but this is not necessary.
(3:110) a.
b.
——[[—+++[——] yesterday]]——S→
——[[—+++[——]]] yesterday ——S→
above, the reference time lies in the past, and the state of loving therefore also ended
in the past.
95
The account of the ambiguity of punctual adverbials is not quite this
straightforward. Following Iatridou et al. (2001) and others, we could
assume that punctual adverbials specify the right boundary of the
assertion time. This means that in the past perfect in (3:104a) above, the
adverbial klockan sex ‘at six o’clock’ specifies the right boundary of
AST1, whereas in (3:104b) it specifies the right boundary of AST2.
However, given a past perfect like (3:108), the right boundary of AST1
and the right boundary of AST2 coincide, and we might therefore not
expect any ambiguity with this kind of adverbial. It is possible that the
ambiguity depends on the placement of the participial event time; when
the punctual adverbial relates to AST1 it does not say anything about the
position of the event time; when it relates to AST2, it does. It can be
noted that the adverbial is not ambiguous in universal perfects; consider
again (3:106) and (3:107) above. Another possibility is that these
punctual adverbials do not specify the right boundary of the perfect time
span, but rather allows us to view the assertion time as a point; this
would make their semantics more similar to that of yesterday.
3.5.4. Conclusion
In the previous sections, I have proposed a way to reconcile the biclausal analysis of the perfect with the semantics of the perfect suggested by Iatridou et al. (2001) and Pancheva (2003) by taking the
semantics of the auxiliary into account. The necessary assumption is that
the evaluation time of the non-finite tense is a point in time (like the
speech time) and that the assertion time of the non-finite clause therefore is placed anterior to some point within the event time of the
auxiliary (and not anterior to the speech time). Understood in this way,
the biclausal analysis is not only equally successful in deriving the
semantics of the perfect as a monoclausal account, but also opens for a
new solution to the present perfect puzzle, and an explanation for the
ambiguity of positional past time adverbials in the past perfect.
Since the analysis pursued here links the semantics of the perfect to
the meaning of the auxiliary (in combination with the non-finite past
tense), it opens for variation between languages. As shown by Pancheva
& von Stechow (2004) and Rothstein (2008), the perfect time span
(AST2 in my terminology) need not include the reference time (AST1) in
languages like German. We can assume that in German, the auxiliary
HAVE is semantically empty (or that it does not necessarily express inclusion). This accounts for the possibility of positional past time ad-
96
verbials and for universal perfects where the eventuality holds throughout AST2 but not at the reference time. I return to the syntax-semantics
of HAVE in more detail in chapter 9 below.
3.6. A note on non-finite perfects and the inferential perfect
In this section, I comment briefly on non-finite perfects and the socalled inferential perfect. Although it is not morphologically visible in
English and Swedish, some infinitival clauses seem to express a nonfinite present or future tense (see e.g. Stowell 1982).
3.6.1. Tensed and tenseless infinitivals and non-finite perfects
According to Wiklund (2007), verbs like påstå ‘claim,’ anse ‘consider’
and övertala ‘persuade’ take tensed complements in Swedish, whereas
verbs like börja ‘begin,’ låta ‘let’ and hjälpa ‘help’ do not. Unlike
tenseless infinitivals, tensed infinitivals can have a temporal reference
that is not overlapping with the matrix tense; see (3:111) and (3:112).
(3:111) a. * Han börjar
att ha
stekt en fisk igår.
he begin.PRES to
have fried a fish yesterday
b. Han påstås
ha stekt en fisk igår.
he claim.PRES.PASS have fried a fish yesterday
‘He is claimed to have fried a fish yesterday.’
(Wiklund 2007:38f.)
(3:112) a.
b.
Igår
hjälpte jag henne att komma hem (*imorgon).
yesterday helped I
her
to come
home tomorrow
‘Yesterday, I helped her to come home.’
Igår
beslutade hon att komma hem
imorgon.
yesterday decided
she to come home tomorrow
‘Yesterday, she decided to come home tomorrow.’
Wiklund argues that only tenseless infinitivals allow copying of the matrix morphology; cf. (3:113a) which allows doubling of the supine morphology and (3:113b) which does not.71
71
Copying of tense morphology is colloquial and not part of the written standard.
It is, however, not uncommon, and it is attested also in Old Swedish (see Ljunggren
1934 and Wiklund 2007 for discussion).
97
(3:113) a.
Han har börjat
steka/stekt
en fisk.
he has begin.SUP fry.INF /fry.SUP a fish
‘He has begun to fry a fish.’
b. * Han har påståtts
stekt
en fisk.
he has claim.SUP.PASS fry.INF/fry.SUP a fish
(cf. Wiklund 2007:45, 50)
As noted by Zwart (2007), infinitives can sometimes be compatible with
a past tense adverbial without embedding a perfect, whereas at other
times an infinitival perfect is needed; cf. the Dutch examples in (3:114a)
and (3:114b). Zwart suggests that this is because the former are tenseless, while the latter are tensed; only when tense is present is an infinitival perfect needed for a past tense reading.
(3:114) a.
b.
Dat slapen
toen de telefoon ging
was
stom.
that sleep.INF when the phone go.PAST.SG be.PAST.SG stupid
‘Sleeping when the phone rang was stupid.’
Jan beweert viool gespeeld te hebben toen de bom ontplofte
John claims violin played to have
when the bomb exploded
‘John claims to have been playing the violin when the bomb
exploded.’
(Zwart 2007:8f.)
In Swedish, the infinitival in (3:115a) is compatible with a past tense
adverbial without perfect morphology, whereas the infinitival in
(3:115b) requires perfect morphology.
(3:115) a.
b.
Att sova när telefonen ringde var dumt.
to
sleep when the.phone rang
was stupid
‘To sleep when the phone rang was stupid.’
Han påstår sig *sova/ha sovit när telefonen ringde.
he claims REFL sleep/have slept when the.phone rang
‘He claims to *sleep/have slept when the phone rang.’
Note that the temporal adverbial of the infinitival in (3:115a) is dependent on the matrix tense; cf. (3:116), where the matrix clause is in
the present tense. This suggests that the infinitival clause is tenseless.
(3:116)
* Att
to
sova när telefonen ringde är dumt.
sleep when the.phone rang
is stupid
In the tensed infinitival, on the other hand, the matrix tense has nothing
to say; in (3:117a) the infinitival perfect is embedded under a present
tense, and in (3:117b) a present tense infinitival is embedded under a
past tense.
98
(3:117) a.
b.
Han påstår sig ha sovit när telefonen ringde.
he claims REFL have slept when the.phone rang
‘He claims to have slept when the phone rang.’
Han påstod sig kunna
sova även när telefonen ringer.
he claimed REFL could.INF sleep also when the.phone rings
‘He claims to be able to sleep also when the phone rings.’
As pointed out by Zwart (2007), perfect morphology is possible also in
the tenseless infinitival; consider the example in (3:118) below.
(3:118)
Att ha sovit när telefonen ringer är bra.
to
have slept when the.phone rings is good
‘To have slept when the phone rings is good.’
We can assume that structures can be tenseless in two different ways,
either by having a deficient, unvalued T, or by lacking a T altogether (cf.
Wiklund 2007). Whereas past participles can be assumed to lack T (see
the following chapters), the tenseless infinitivals above presumably
come with an unvalued auxiliary T which is valued (as present or past)
by the matrix (finite) T.72 In other words, the participial tense is interpreted relative the matrix finite tense. Since the matrix T has a present
tense value in (3:118), the reading is that of a present perfect. As expected, positional past time adverbials are excluded; cf. (3:119).
(3:119)
* Att
to
ha sovit när telefonen ringde är bra.
have slept when the.phone rang
is good
An adverbial like nyligen ‘recently’, which is compatible with a present
perfect, is possible also in tenseless infinitivals; cf. the present perfect in
(3:120a) and the tenseless infinitival in (3:120b).73
(3:120) a.
72
Hon har nyligen somnat.
she has recently fallen.asleep
’She has recently fallen asleep.’
As noted by Wiklund (2007), valuation and interpretation of tense is not ‘bottom-up’; an unvalued tense appears to be valued by a higher tense (even when there
is a lower tense in the structure). Tenses are known to have anaphoric properties (see
e.g. Partee 1973, Kratzer 1998).
73 I disregard the fact that some tenseless infinitivals have future-oriented or modal
reading which is incompatible with all kinds of past tense modification.
99
b.
Det är alltid irriterande att nyligen ha somnat
när
it
is always annoying to
recently have fallen.asleep when
telefonen ringer.
the.phone rings
‘It is always annoying to have recently fallen asleep when the phone
rings.’
When the finite tense instead is in the past, also a positional past time
adverbial is possible; cf. (3:121).
Att ha sovit när telefonen ringde var bra.
to
have slept when the.phone rang
was good
‘To have slept when the phone rang was good.’
(3:121)
In tensed non-finite perfects, on the other hand, the auxiliary presumably comes with a present tense value; the non-finite past has participial
morphology. The question then is why tensed infinitivals are not restricted in the same way as the present perfect with regard to positional
past time adverbials; consider the examples in (3:122), where also the
matrix is in the present tense.
(3:122) a.
b.
Han påstås
ha stekt en fisk igår.
he claim.PRES.PASS have fried a fish yesterday
‘He is claimed to have fried a fish yesterday.’
Han är glad
över att ha vunnit igår.
he is happy over to
have won
yesterday
‘He is happy to have won yesterday.’
One possibility is that the difference between present perfect and nonfinite perfects in tensed infinitivals depends on the anchoring of the
tense of the auxiliary clause. In finite perfects, the matrix tense relates
the assertion time (AST1) to the speech time. Since the participial
assertion time includes AST1 in languages like Swedish and English,
positional past time adverbials are excluded when AST1 lies in the
present (i.e. in the present perfect). In tensed non-finite perfects, the
tense of the auxiliary is presumably related to the matrix event time and
not to the speech time; recall that I have assumed that the participial past
tense is ordered in relation to (some moment in) the event time of
HAVE, and not directly in relation to the speech time. Since the event
time can partly precede the speech time, the non-finite present can be
anchored to a moment before the speech time, and the participial
assertion time can consequently also strictly precede the speech time.
The prediction is therefore that the interpretation of the non-finite
100
perfect depends on the matrix event time and how it is related to an
assertion time (i.e. on aspect); I leave an investigation of this for future
work.
Non-finite perfects embedded under modals behave like tenseless
infinitivals in the sense that the time of the modal and the time of the
infinitive cannot be independently specified; consider (3:123). A nonfinite perfect embedded under a modal with what seems to be present
tense morphology is, however, compatible with a past time adverbial; cf.
(3:124).
(3:123) a.
b.
Han måste ha sovit igår.
he must
have slept yesterday
‘He must have slept yesterday.’
Idag
måste han ha sovit
(*igår).
today must
he have slept
yesterday
‘Today, he must have slept.’
Han ska
ha sovit igår.
he is.said have slept yesterday
‘He is said to have slept yesterday.’
(3:124)
There are well-known complications with regard to modals and tense
(see Eide 2005 for discussion). We could assume that the modal itself is
tenseless (like e.g. Cinque 1999), and that the tense value is contributed
by the infinitival alone. However, if the infinitive embedded under a
modal has a present tense value, a non-finite perfect embedded under a
modal would behave like a present perfect, and positional past tense
adverbials would be excluded. In fact, constructions with modals do
typically not make assertions about the speech time; in none of the
examples in (3:125) is it asserted that the time of the event lies partly or
completely within an interval that includes the speech time. Non-finite
perfects embedded under modals do therefore not necessarily involve an
assertion time that includes the speech time.
(3:125) a.
b.
Hon måste sova nu.
she must
sleep now
‘She must sleep now.’
‘She must be sleeping now.’
Hon ska sova nu.
she shall sleep now
‘She will sleep now.’
‘She should sleep now.’
101
For the purposes of this thesis, it suffices that the analysis of the perfect
as involving a biclausal structure and a non-finite past tense does not
preclude an account of the properties of non-finite perfects. I will not
discuss them further, but instead turn to a modal use of present perfect
morphology.
3.6.2. The inferential perfect
As noted above, present perfect morphology is sometimes grammatical
with positional past time adverbials in the Scandinavian languages; see
the Swedish examples in (3:126), Icelandic in (3:127) and Norwegian in
(3:128) (cf. also the examples in (3:87) and (3:88) above).
(3:126)
På försommaren
1814 har Stagnelius säkerligen återvändt
in the early.summer 1814 has Stagnelius surely
returned
till hemmet
i Kalmar.
to
the.home in Kalmar
‘In the early summer of 1814, Stagnelius surely returned to his home
in Kalmar.’
(Kinnander 1973:129; example from 1919)74
(3:127)
Jón hefur verið fullur þegar hann sagði þetta.
John has
been drunk when he said this
‘John was probably drunk when he said this.’
(Thráinsson 2005:363)
(3:128)
De har trolig
truffet hverandre mens de var i Paris.
they have probably met
each.other while they were in Paris
‘They probably met each other while they were in Paris.’
(Faarlund et al. 1997:632)
Examples like these have an epistemic reading and convey that the
speaker makes an inference based on the evidence at hand; this use of
the perfect is therefore sometimes referred to as the evidential or inferential reading.
The topic of the sentence need not be alive in the inferential perfect as
it does in the present perfect; the poet Stagnelius died in 1823, but the
example in (3:126) is from 1919; cf. the infelicitous present perfects in
(3:129) (see also fn. 57 above).
74
The spelling with -dt on the participle (återvändt for återvänt) was standard
until the spelling reform in 1906, but is attested also after that.
102
(3:129) a. # Stagnelius
Stagnelius
b. # Stagnelius
Stagnelius
har
has
har
has
dött
died
varit
been
1823.
1823
sjuk. (Disregarding the inferential reading)
sick
Inferential perfects typically involve an epistemic adverb. Contrary to
what Rothstein (2005, 2008) claims, the adverbial is, however, not necessary, and the inferential meaning therefore appears to be independent
of it; cf (3:130) which is grammatical on an inferential reading also
without the adverbial.
(3:130)
Han har (tydligen) varit sjuk igår.
he has apparently been sick yesterday
‘Apparently, he was sick yesterday.’
The inferential reading is, however, not independent of the present
perfect morphology. As pointed out by Izvorski (1997), an inferential
reading is not generally available in different syntactic configurations in
the absence of adverbials; for a present tense sentence like (3:131) to get
an inferential reading, an adverbial is required. Similar patterns are
reported also from other languages (e.g. Turkish and Bulgarian; see
Izvorski 1997 and Bybee & Dahl 1989).
(3:131)
Han är sjuk.
he is sick
‘He is sick.’
not ‘He is apparently sick.’
The inferential perfect has often been assumed to have a simple past
tense reading, rather than a perfect tense reading (for Icelandic see e.g.
Thráinsson 2005:363). We could assume that the auxiliary HAVE in the
inferential perfect is a modal, hence the similar behaviour of the
inferential perfect and non-finite perfects under modals.75 It is well
known that tense morphology sometimes can be utilized to express
modality (cf. chapter 5 below). Here, a full discussion of the inferential
perfect would lead too far afield, and this reading is disregarded in the
following.
75
Rothstein (2005, 2008) postulates that the inferential reading is a non-finite
perfect embedded under a zero modal auxiliary; also non-finite perfects embedded
under modals allow positional past time adverbials. Among other things, this
analysis runs into problems with accounting for the fact that the zero modal only
occurs with present perfect morphology.
103
3.7. Conclusion
In this chapter, I have argued for a biclausal analysis of the perfect. The
main argument for this is that it allows us to account for the perfect
without assuming a particular perfect phrase. The challenge is to
successfully account for the semantics of the perfect, allowing also for
the universal reading, and to explain the restrictions on adverbial
modification in languages like English and Swedish. I have shown that
the biclausal analysis can, in fact, be reconciled with the semantics of
the perfect suggested by Iatridou et al. (2001) and Pancheva (2003).
Moreover, I have suggested that the difference between languages like
German, on the one hand, and languages like Swedish and English, on
the other, is a consequence of the varying properties of the auxiliary; in
Swedish and English, temporal HAVE places the matrix assertion time
within the participial assertion time, whereas in German, the relation
between the two assertion times is unspecified. The English and
Swedish present perfect can be represented as in (3:132), whereas the
German present perfect allows both this reading (represented in
(3:133a)) and the reading represented in (3:133b).
(3:132) The English and Swedish present perfect:
———— [[—————S]]→
(3:133) The German present perfect:
a. ———— [[—————S]]→
b. ———— [[——]]———S→
Given the biclausal analysis of the perfect, the historical development of
the HAVE-perfect can be viewed as a development of a participle with a
non-finite past tense value (a perfect participle) and a temporal auxiliary
HAVE. Since the different readings of the perfect share the syntax of the
perfect, but differ with regard to aspect, the development of the perfect
can be understood as a single change.
In the next chapter, I give an empirical overview of the earliest
examples of perfect-type constructions and unambiguous perfects with
HAVE in the Germanic languages.
104
4. Early perfects
The perfect with HAVE is generally assumed to originate in a construction with possessive HAVE + a stative participial complement as in
(4:1a) below; cf. the perfect in (4:1b) (see among others Meillet 1917,
Johannisson 1945:18, Kuryłowicz 1965, Bybee & Dahl 1989).
(4:1)
a.
b.
Frida har redan väskorna packade.
Frida has already the.bags pack.PTC.PL
‘Frida already has the bags packed.’
Frida har redan packat
väskorna.
Frida has already pack.SUP the.bags
‘Frida has already packed the bags.’
A similarity in form and meaning is a prerequisite for the reanalysis
from a perfect-like construction to a perfect tense. However, there are
also differences between the two constructions relating both to form and
interpretation which make it possible to trace the development of the
perfect in the historical records. In the investigation of the early
development of the perfect in the Germanic languages, it is therefore
crucial how we make the distinction between the perfect-like construction with HAVE and the HAVE-perfect. Much of the discussion in this
and the following chapters will centre on what distinguishes the perfect
from the perfect-like constructions.
In the preceding chapter, I distinguished four readings of the perfect:
the experiential perfect, the universal perfect, the perfect of recent past
and the resultative perfect. Following Iatridou et al. (2001) and
Pancheva (2003), I assumed that these readings are a consequence of
aspectual features that are not contributed by perfect morphology, but
which occur also outside the perfect. The perfect-like construction with
possessive HAVE is, however, generally restricted to the resultative
reading, which states that the target state of a telic predicate holds at the
time of the matrix clause. The experiential reading is generally not
available; cf. the experiential perfect in (4:2) with the corresponding,
ungrammatical perfect-like example in (4:3) below.
105
(4:2)
Hon har packat väskorna tre gånger.
she has packed the.bags three times
‘She has packed the bags three times.’
(4:3)
* Hon har väskorna
she has the.bags
packade
pack.PTC.PL
tre gånger.
three times
In this chapter, I give an empirical background to the early development
of perfects with HAVE in the Germanic languages as it can be traced in
the historical records. The focus is on the different readings of the perfect and the kind of predicate involved. Constructions with BE are
largely disregarded; they are treated separately in the following chapters.
Section 4.1 discusses ways to distinguish perfect-like examples from
perfects. The diagnostics are to be taken as a first attempt; they will be
modified in the following chapters as the syntax and semantics of the
perfect-like constructions are specified. In section 4.2, I investigate the
occurrences of constructions with HAVE + participle in some of the
oldest Germanic sources. In section 4.3, I look closer at the evidence for
perfects in Old Scandinavian, and compare the results to previous
studies on English. I return to the interpretation of the historical data in
chapter 10, where I also take into consideration questions relating to
participle agreement and case.
4.1. Distinguishing perfects
Disregarding possible differences in agreement-patterns and word order,
perfect-like constructions and perfects can be formally identical, both
involving HAVE (or BE) and a participial form. They can also have
roughly the same meaning; consider the examples in (4:1) again (repeated in (4:4) below).
(4:4)
a.
b.
Frida har redan väskorna packade.
Frida has already the.bags pack.PTC.PL
‘Frida already has the bags packed.’
Frida har redan packat
väskorna.
Frida has already pack.SUP the.bags
‘Frida has already packed the bags.’
The construction with HAVE + agreeing participle in (4:4a) and the
perfect with HAVE + supine in (4:4b) both state that there is a present
situation (of packed bags) which results from an event of packing. In
both cases, Frida is interpreted as the Agent of the packing (at least on
106
the primary reading). However, as soon as the event of packing (rather
than the filled bags) is contextually relevant, only the perfect is possible.
Hence, the resultative in (4:4a) cannot be used in a context where
somebody has to empty a room by putting everything in it in bags and
where the intended result is the empty room rather than the packed bags.
On the other hand, the matrix subject and the Agent of the participial
event can have disjoint reference in the construction with possessive
HAVE, but not in the perfect; a possible reading of (4:5) is that Frida
wanted somebody else to do the packing. Also a reading where Frida is
the (intended) Agent of the packing is possible (e.g. in a context where
Frida wanted to get time to do the packing before Thursday). Whether
the subject is coreferent with the implicit argument of the participle or
not appears to depend on the wider context.
(4:5)
Frida ville
ha väskorna packade
innan torsdag.
Frida wanted have the.bags pack.PTC.PL before Thursday
‘Frida wanted to have the bags packed before Thursday.’
As pointed out above, the similarities in morphology and form between
the constructions is a prerequisite for change; the more a construction
resembles some other construction, the more likely it is that it is
reinterpreted as involving the (structure of the) other construction. In the
development of the perfect, the perfect-like construction is interpreted as
a construction that was not previously present in the language. In the
historical records, examples of unambiguous perfects constitute evidence for the reanalysis. In the following, I consider possible diagnostics that can be applied to the historical data in order to pinpoint unambiguous perfects.
As will be seen in chapter 10, the morphological distinction between
past participle and supine is not yet established in Old and Early Modern
Swedish, and it can therefore not be used as a diagnostic in the historical
material. Furthermore, Present-Day Swedish can omit finite forms of
temporal HAVE in subordinate clauses, as in (4:6). Finite auxiliary
omission does not appear to be possible in Old Swedish, and in PresentDay Swedish it is always optional (see further chapter 9).
(4:6)
Jag vet
att hon (har) skrivit brevet.
I
know that she has written the.letter
‘I know that she (has) written the letter.’
107
Also non-finite auxiliary HAVE can be omitted in certain context, e.g.
in perfects embedded under modals with preterite morphology (see
Julien 2002 for discussion); a present-day example is given in (4:7).
(4:7)
Han skulle (ha) skrivit den.
he should have written it
‘He should (have) written it.’
Non-finite auxiliary omission is attested also in Old Swedish, but
examples are rare. Auxiliary omission is therefore not relevant as a
diagnostic in the historical material investigated here.
4.1.1. Word order
In Present-Day Swedish, perfects and perfect-like constructions with
HAVE differ in both morphology and word order. In perfect-like constructions, the object DP obligatorily precedes the participle; in the
perfect, an object DP cannot occur in the position between auxiliary and
participle:
(4:8)
a. * Hon
she
b. * Hon
she
har
has
har
has
packade
väskorna.
pack.PTC.PL the.bags
väskorna packat.
the.bags pack.SUP/PTC.N.SG
Unlike Present-Day Swedish, Old Swedish and Old Norse (and the other
Old Germanic languages) allow both object–verb and verb–object
orders in perfects and other auxiliary constructions; cf. (4:9a) and (4:9b)
(cf. e.g. Delsing 1999:163f. and Faarlund 2004).76
(4:9)
76
a.
Nu kunnu synæmæn garþ wiliæ
fællæ.
now might inspector farm want.INF convict
‘Now the witnesses might want to declare a farm useless.’
(UL 1297:Vb. 6)
The form hawi of HAVE is the present or past subjunctive (sg. or 3pl.).
Subjunctive forms are fairly common in the Old Scandinavian texts, particularly in
the laws.
108
b.
ok landboe hawi foregiört allu ærwþi
sinu. utæn
and tenant has forfeited all inheritance his except
husum enum
houses one
‘and a tenant has forfeited all his inheritance except one of the
houses’
(UL 1297:Jb. 10)
Word order can therefore not be used to distinguish perfect-like constructions from perfects in the historical data and will not be considered
further. It should, however, be noted that the variable word order makes
the formal similarity between the perfect and the perfect-like construction greater in the Old Germanic languages than in the present-day
languages; this also makes a reanalysis more likely.
4.1.2. Agreement
In Present-Day Swedish, the participle is inflected for number and
gender in perfect-like constructions. In perfects, on the other hand, the
participle is never inflected; cf. (4:1) (repeated in (4:10) below) and the
ungrammatical examples in (4:11).
(4:10)
a.
b.
(4:11)
Frida har redan väskorna packade.
Frida has already the.bags pack.PTC.PL
‘Frida already has the bags packed.’
Frida har redan packat
väskorna.
Frida has already pack.SUP the.bags
‘Frida has already packed the bags.’
a. * Frida
she
b. * Frida
she
har
has
har
has
redan
already
redan
already
väskorna packat.
the.bags pack.SUP/PTC.N.SG
packade
väskorna.
pack.PTC.PL the.bags
To some extent, agreement (or the lack thereof) can be used as a means
of distinguishing perfects from perfect-like constructions in the historical records. Participles obligatorily agree with the object DP in a perfect-like construction with HAVE in Present-Day Swedish, and we do
not expect less agreement in Old Swedish than in Present-Day Swedish;
on the contrary, Old Swedish has richer morphology than Present-Day
Swedish. We can therefore assume that a construction with HAVE + a
non-agreeing participle is a perfect and not a perfect-like construction in
Old Swedish, just as it is in Present-Day Swedish. The same can be said
109
with regard to Icelandic but not to Old English and German where
predicative participles and adjectives lose their inflection at an early
stage.
We can, however, not immediately exclude transitive, agreeing participles from perfects. As pointed out by Kayne (1989:95) and Belletti
(2006:502), there are Italian dialects where the participle agrees with a
full object DP also in a perfect with HAVE (cf. Egerland 1996). This is
possible also in literary Italian; see (4:12) which, according to Belletti is
marginally grammatical on the relevant stylistic level.
(4:12)
Maria ha conosciute
le
Maria has know.PTC.FEM.PL the
‘Maria has known the girls.’
(Belletti 2006:502)
ragazze
girl.FEM.PL
Agreeing participles are more common in the complement of HAVE in
the oldest Scandinavian sources than they are in the modern languages
(see Ekbo 1943); one example is given in (4:13) below.
(4:13)
Ec hefi Hlórriða
hamar
um fólginn
I
have the.thunderer’s hammer.M.SG.ACC PRT hidden.M.SG.ACC
‘I have the hammer of the Thunderer hidden.’
(Edda Þrk.8)
The high number of agreeing participles can a priori suggest either that
participles could be inflected also in perfects or that perfect-like constructions were more common (or a combination of the two). I return to
these possibilities in chapter 10.
4.1.3. Case
In the Old Germanic languages the possessive verb HAVE always
assigns morphological accusative case to a DP object. In perfects, on the
other hand, it is the perfect participle that assigns case, and, depending
on participial verb, the object can therefore appear with accusative,
dative or genitive marking (or be missing). Compare the Old Swedish
examples of possessive HAVE in (4:14a) and temporal HAVE in
(4:14b); the former case has an accusative object, the latter a genitive
object.
110
(4:14)
a.
b.
han hauar liusan
hy:
he has
pale.M.SG.ACC skin.M.SG.ACC
‘he has pale skin’
(Leg c.1300:204)
Nu skal bonde þæn
sins
now shall farmer who.M.SG.ACC POSS.REFL.M.SG.GEN
ingangæ
in.go
‘Now a farmer who has lost his [property] shall go in’
(ÄVgL c. 1220:Tj. 5)
hauir mist
has lost
It has sometimes been assumed that the case-marking of the object DP
distinguishes perfects from perfect-like constructions, and that genitive
and dative DPs only appear in the complement of HAVE in perfects.
This would mean that they could be used as a diagnostic for perfects.
However, we cannot immediately exclude that participles in the complement of possessive HAVE can assign case (at some stage in the
development). It is well known that passive past participles can assign
dative case in languages like Icelandic. I therefore do not a priori take
genitive and dative objects as evidence for perfect structures. In the
investigation of the early Germanic perfects, I note the case patterns,
and they are discussed in chapter 10.
4.1.4. Intransitive verbs and perfect readings
In the investigation of the Old Germanic material in this chapter, I focus
on contexts where only perfects are expected to be possible, as e.g. in
non-resultative perfects (experiential perfects and universal perfects). As
noted above, a perfect-like construction like (4:15a) asserts that the
target state of the embedded predicate still holds; cf. the perfect in
(4:15b) which allows also an experiential reading.
(4:15)
a.
b.
Hon har väskorna packade (# men hon har packat upp
she has the.bags packed
but
she has packed up
dem igen).
them again
‘She has the bags packed (#but she has unpacked them again).’
Hon har packat väskorna (men hon har packat upp
she has packed the.bags but she has packed up
dem igen)
them again
‘She has packed the bags (but she has unpacked them again).’
111
Frequency adverbials and adverbials of iteration or repetition yield an
experiential reading; they are therefore not possible in perfect-like constructions; see (4:16) which is ungrammatical with the adverbial många
gånger ‘many times’.
(4:16)
Hon har väskorna packade (*många gånger).
she has the.bags packed
many times
‘She has the bags packed (*many times).’
In addition, perfect-like constructions with HAVE are restricted to
certain groups of verbs, whereas perfects are not. Possessive HAVE is,
for instance, not possible with participles of stative verbs (cf. chapter 6
below). Consequently, stative verbs unambiguously form perfects with
HAVE; see (4:17).
(4:17)
a. * Frida har svaret
vetat.
Frida has the.answer
known
b. Frida har vetat
svaret.
Frida has known the answer
‘Frida has known the answer.’
Moreover, perfect-like constructions with HAVE require an object DP
in Present-Day Swedish. Examples of intransitive verbs in the complement of HAVE can therefore be taken to be unambiguous perfects,
independently of whether the verb is unergative (like sova ‘sleep’) or
unaccusative (like ankomma ‘arrive’); see (4:18) which show that agreeing participles of intransitive verbs are disallowed in the complement
of HAVE.
(4:18)
a.
b.
Frida har sovit/*soven.
Frida has sleep.SUP/sleep.PTC.C.SG
‘Frida has slept.’
Frida har just ankommit/*ankommet/*ankommen.
Frida has just arrive.SUP/arrive.PTC.N.SG/arrived.PTC.C.SG
‘Frida has just arrived.’
Since participles of unaccusative verbs can have an active reading in the
complement of BE, and form perfects with BE and not HAVE in
languages like German and Danish, I keep them apart from other
intransitive verbs in the investigation of the early perfects with HAVE.
One complication is that the object need not always be explicit in
perfect-like constructions. Present-day Swedish examples like (4:19a)
are, in fact, ambiguous between a perfect and a stative perfect-like
112
reading. On the latter reading, the construction presumably involves an
implicit object pronoun, which can also be spelled-out as in (4:19b).
(4:19)
a.
b.
Hon har alltid städat hemma.
she has always cleaned at.home
i. ‘She always has a clean home.’
ii. ‘She has always cleaned at home.’
Hon har det städat hemma.
she has it cleaned at.home
‘She has it clean at home.’
In the old Germanic sources, examples with implicit objects should
therefore be treated as possibly ambiguous.
4.1.5. Summary
In this section, I have pointed out a few possible ways of distinguishing
unambiguous perfects. In the rest of the chapter, it will be particularly
relevant that intransitive and stative verbs do not occur in the complement of possessive HAVE. Examples of these verbs in the complement of HAVE will be taken as evidence for a perfect tense in the
language.
In the following sections, I consider the evidence for a perfect in
some of the oldest Germanic sources. The aim is not to analyse all
examples of HAVE + participle as either perfects or perfect-like constructions. As noted, the ambiguous cases are important for an understanding of the grammatical change, but unambiguous cases, and examples that clearly differ in type, are necessary for us to trace the
development. Given the diagnostics employed here, the group of examples that are considered ambiguous and possibly perfect-like is larger
than we would expect from looking at the perfect-like construction with
HAVE in Present-Day Swedish; as we will see, not all of the ambiguous
examples can be translated with a construction with possessive HAVE +
agreeing participle in Present-Day Swedish. By keeping the group of
unambiguous perfects small and well-defined, the diagnostics for
pinpointing the early unambiguous perfects can also be explicit and
precise. Furthermore, as we will see in the following chapters, there is
more than one kind of perfect-like construction, and perfect-like
constructions can look more or less like perfects. If we treated more
cases as unambiguous perfects, this observation would be lost.
113
4.2. Early Germanic perfects with HAVE
In this section, I give an overview of the occurrences of perfect-type
constructions with HAVE in some of the oldest Germanic sources,
considering in turn Gothic, Old Scandinavian, Old High German and
Old English. The focus is on the first unambiguous cases of perfects. In
section 4.3 below, I investigate the distribution of perfect-type constructions with HAVE closer, focusing on the Scandinavian languages.
4.2.1. Material
The overview is based mainly on the collections of data in earlier
studies, particularly Ekbo (1943) and Grønvik (1986). As a complement,
the Scandinavian runic material, Beowulf and the 9th century Old High
German text by Otfrid have been investigated; see Table 4.1.77 The
study of Beowulf is based on the concordance of participles given in
Köhler (1886) with a couple of minor corrections and the addition of
one example (from Grønvik 1986:63). For the investigation of the text
by Otfrid, I follow Dieninghoff (1904) and Erdmann (1874–1876);
Dieninghoff bases his investigation on Erdmann’s but adds one example
and corrects another. All examples of HAVE + participle have been
included in the data set, whether the reading is unambiguously perfect or
not.
TABLE 4.1.
Investigated Old Germanic texts.
Text
Beowulf
Otfrid’s
Evangelienbuch
Runic inscriptions
Date
–
c. 870
(mainly)
c. 900 –
c.1100
Language
Old English
Old High
German
Old
Scandinavian
Text type
Poetry
Versification
of the gospels
Epigraphy
Text size
3182 couplets
7104 couplets
c. 6500
inscriptions
The material is disparate both with regard to origin and text type. The
text by Otfrid is a versified periphrasis of the four Gospels, but it is also
77
The runic inscriptions are available electronically. The examples are taken from
the electronic corpus of Scandinavian runic inscriptions (Samnordisk runtextdatabas,
http://www.nordiska.uu.se/forskn/samnord.htm). The interpretations and English
translations are based on those given there. The signature of the inscriptions are
given in brackets.
114
partly based on other (Latin) sources; it is not a pure translation. The
dating of Beowulf is uncertain; the manuscript is now generally taken to
originate in the 11th century, though the text is assumed to be older.78
The corpus of runic inscriptions includes around 6500 Viking Age and
Medieval inscriptions of varying length; most of them can be dated to
the period 900–1100. There is a slight possibility that some of the
material has a conservative language and appears older than it is; we
have no way of knowing whether differences between the texts are due
to real time or apparent time, to use the terminology of Weinreich,
Labov & Herzog (1968) and others. The purpose here is not, and cannot
be, to trace the real time emergence and spread of the perfect in the
speech community, and the difference between real time and apparent
time need therefore not be of any concern.79
In addition to this material, I refer to previous studies of e.g. the 4th
century Gothic Bible (translated from Greek by Wulfila), the Old High
German (Alemannian) texts by Notker (born c. 950), which are translations from Latin and of several hundred pages (including e.g.
Aristotle, Boethius, Virgil and the Book of Psalms), and the Old Saxon
versified gospel Heliand (9th century) which is approximately 6000
lines.
4.2.2. Gothic
It is well known that Gothic has two tenses, the present and the preterite
(cf. e.g. Krause 1968). In the Gothic Bible, Greek perfects are translated
into present tense or simple past tense forms; according to Pollak
(1929:14), the normal translation is the simple past (cf. also Stolzenburg
1905).
There are, however, a few examples of constructions with HAVE +
en-participle in the Gothic Bible (see Grønvik 1986:34; cf. Gering
1874:299f., Ekbo 1943:111). One example is given in (4:20) below; the
verb is galagjan ‘place, put away’.80
78
See Kiernan (1981) for an overview and critical discussion of the origin and age
of Beowulf.
79 We do not generally expect any elaborate differences between genres or manipulation of the language in the earliest Germanic sources, at least not in a sense
relevant for the present study.
80 In Old Germanic, the prefix ga- (gi-/ge-) is not restricted to participles, but can
occur also on other verb forms (and in other categories). Its position and semantics
is debated.
115
(4:20)
frauja, sai, sa skatts þeins þanei
habaida
lord see that pound your which.M.SG.ACC have.PRET.1SG.
galagidana
in fanin
place.PTC.M.SG.ACC
in napkin
‘Lord, see this your pound which I had placed in a napkin.’
(Luke 19:20)81
The perfect-type constructions with HAVE in Gothic involve possessive
and not temporal HAVE. The example in (4:20) expresses that the
money was in the state resulting from the placing of them in the cloth
(i.e., it was in the cloth), and it is not a translation of a Greek perfect.
Consider the corresponding example in Greek, Latin and Swedish, given
in (4:21).82
(4:21)
a.
b.
c.
kúrie, idoù hê mnã sou hên
lord
see that coin your which.F.SG.ACC.
eĩchon
apokeiménên
en soudaríô
have.IMPF.ACT.1SG hide.PTC.F.SG.ACC. in napkin
‘Lord, see this your pound which I had hidden in a napkin.’
Domine, ecce moneta tua,
quam,
habui
lord
see coin
your
which.F.SG.ACC. have.PERF.1SG.
repositam
in sudario
hide.PTC.F.SG.ACC. in napkin
‘Lord, see this your pound which I had had hidden in a napkin.’
Herre, här
har du ditt pund. Jag har haft
lord here have you your pound I
have have.SUP
det
undanlagt
i en duk
it.N.SG
away.put.PTC.N.SG in a cloth
‘Lord, here you have your pound. I have had it put away in a cloth.’
The Greek text has an imperfect of HAVE with a participial complement. In Latin, HAVE is in the synthetic perfect tense and takes a
past participial complement (repositam). Finally, in the Swedish translation, the temporal auxiliary HAVE embeds a perfect participle of
possessive HAVE + a past participle.
The participial forms derived by the suffixes *-þa- or *-ena-/*-anahave adjectival properties in Gothic, as in Latin and Sanskrit (see e.g.
Larsson 2006 and references cited there). Like adjectives, they are
inflected for gender, number and case, as in (4:20) above. There is one
example where a participle takes a comparative form; namely þaúrftozo
81
Codex Argenteus has galagida ina.
I am grateful to Elisabet Engdahl and Erik Magnusson for glossing the Greek
and Latin examples. The transliteration from Greek is based on the Perseus key,
which is available at http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/resolveform.
82
116
‘more needed’ in (4:22) (cf. Krause 1968:249); the verb is þaúrban
‘need’ and the positive of the participle is þaúrfts.
(4:22)
aþþan du wisan in leika
þaurftozo
but
to
remain in the.body need.PTC.COMP
‘but to remain in the body [is] more needed for you’
(Philippians 1:24; from Suzuki 1989:32)
in
for
izwara
you
In the modern Germanic languages, the adjectival inflection on participles has often been lost, and most often only analytic comparison is
possible. Adjectival participles do, however, sometimes take morphological comparison also in Present-Day Swedish, as in frusen ‘frozen’,
frusnare ‘more frozen’, frusnast ‘most frozen’ (cf. SAG 1999, 2:607).
It should, however, be noted that Gothic participles are not always
easily analysed simply as pure adjectives. On the contrary, passives with
the auxiliary BE appear to have been compatible with agent adverbials,
as in (4:23) (see Abraham 1992 for a discussion of passives in Gothic).
(4:23)
daupidai
wesun allai in Iaurdane aƕai
baptize.PTC.PL.NOM were all in Jordan river
‘all were baptized by him in the Jordan river’
(Mark 1:5)
fram
by
imma
him
In this respect Gothic is unlike German but like Swedish (cf. chapter 8
below). As noted in chapter 2 above, passive participles can have verbal
properties even though the inflection is adjectival.
4.2.3. Scandinavian
Of the 16 instances of the verb HAVE in the Swedish Viking Age runic
inscriptions in Peterson (2006), at least 9 appear to involve perfect-type
constructions.83 Consider the example in (4:24) which has a non-
83
The numbers are not definitive, but depend on the interpretation of the
inscriptions. Peterson (2006) gives 17 examples of forms of HAVE ‘have,’ but one
of these (ÖgN 288) should, according to Gustavson (2003), be given a different
reading. I do not include as perfect-type constructions two examples (U 512, U 758)
where the relevant parts of the inscriptions are completely or almost completely
missing. In addition, one example (Vg 59), which can be assumed to involve a
perfect-type HAVE in an elliptic construction, is excluded, since the participle is
implicit.
117
agreeing participle of a stative predicate (vara ‘be’), and two agreeing
participles (brutna ‘broken’ and barþa ‘beaten’).
(4:24)
sbiut × / × saR × uisitaula × um × uaRit : hafþi ×
Spjót
who
in.the.west
PRT
been had
burg ×
um brutna :
i : auk × um barþa
towns.F.SG.ACC PRT broken.F.SG.ACC in and PRT beaten.F.SG.ACC
‘Spjót, who had been in the west, broken down and fought in towns’
(Sö 106)84
Since stative and intransitive verbs are ungrammatical in non-perfects
with HAVE, the participle of vara must be a perfect participle. There are
all in all three examples of stative predicates in the complement of
HAVE in the Swedish Viking Age inscriptions; one is given in (4:25);
the third (Sö 159) is similar.
(4:25)
han hafþi : ystarla
u(m) : uaRit : lenki :
he had
in.the.west PRT
been
long
tuu : a:ustarla : meþ : inkuari
died in.the.east with
Ingvarr
‘He had long been in the west; died in the east with Ingvarr.’
(Sö 173)
We can note that the reading of (4:25) is experiential rather than universal: he had been in the west for a long time, but he was not there
when he died.
Also in the Norwegian medieval runic inscriptions there is an example of the verb BE embedded under HAVE; it is given in (4:26)
below (cf. Ekbo 1943:33).85 Again, the reading is experiential: the
writer is not still in the place where the cranny can be reached.
(4:26)
ek hæfi ueærit þar
mani na
kranne
I
have been
where could reach cranny
‘I have been where (one) could reach (into the) cranny.’
(N 49)
Hence, the Scandinavian languages appear to have had a perfect tense
with HAVE already in the earliest written records; in this respect they
84
It is possible that the form uisitaula ‘the west’ should instead be read as
uisitarla (cf. ystarla ‘the west’ and a:ustarla ‘the east’ in (4:25)). Runic r can
sometimes be very similar to runic u.
85 In addition, Ekbo (1943:39) gives an example from a Danish medieval inscription (DR 373) where the verb HAVE is partly unreadable.
118
are noticeably different from Gothic.86 The observation is supported by
data from the earliest Scandinavian texts written in the Latin alphabet.
Äldre Västgötalagen (ÄVgL, c. 1220) has examples of perfects with
atelic and intransitive verbs, as in (4:27) below. I return to the
frequencies and usage of perfects in Old Scandinavian in section 4.3.
(4:27)
Vatn skal
eigh vændæ af
fornu fari.
aþrum
water should not turn
from old
course other
manni til andmarkæ aþruvis
æn fyr
hauir runnit.
men
to detriment otherwise than before have run
‘Water should one not lead from its old course to the detriment of
other men, different than it has run before.’
(ÄVgL c. 1220:Kv.)
Apart from the perfect-type constructions with HAVE in the runic
inscriptions, there is one example of a perfect-type construction with
egha ‘own’ + participle; see (4:28) below (cf. Grønvik 1986:63). The
participle is launat ‘rewarded’. 87
(4:28)
(r)aþi (t)(u)k […] in a
iak as(u) (þ)ui
launat
Hraði took
but own I
Ása
therewith rewarded
‘Hraði took […], but I, Ása, have therewith rewarded it’
(DR 263)
As we will see below, similar examples occur also in German.
4.2.4. German
The evidence for a perfect tense in the oldest German sources is weak,
and the development has been assumed to occur later in German than in
the other Germanic languages. In the translation of Isidor von Sevilla
from the end of the 8th century, all (synthetic) Latin perfects (in the
active) are translated as the simple preterite (Schröder 1955:7).
According to Grønvik (1986:34f.), the first occurrence of a perfect-type
construction with HAVE + a participle of a transitive verb appears in the
86
I disregard the older runic inscriptions. In the inscriptions given by Antonsen
(1975), there are no examples of perfect-type construction with HAVE. This
material is, however, too limited to allow for any conclusions.
87 There are two interpretations of the stone. Marstrander (1965:272) reads the
inscription as ‘I, Ása, have therewith paid for it’. Moltke (1985:354), on the other
hand, interprets it as ‘with that, I, Ása, have rewarded [somebody]’.
119
beginning of the 9th century; see (4:29). It does not involve HAVE, but
eigan ‘own’ + non-agreeing participle of the verb empfangen ‘get,
receive’.
(4:29)
ir
den christanun namun
intfangan
eigut
he who Christian name.M.SG.ACC receive.PTC.N.SG owned
‘he who had received a Christian name’
(Exhortatio c. 800:49; from Grønvik 1986:34f.)
Since neither adjectives nor participles need show agreement in Old
High German (see e.g. Lockwood 1968:39), we cannot necessarily
distinguish perfects from perfect-like construction by means of inflection, and the example in (4:29) is therefore not an unambiguous
perfect (even if it, unlike the Gothic example with HAVE + participle
above, is a translation of a synthetic Latin perfect; see Grønvik 1986:
35).
In the early Old High German texts, constructions with HAVE and
eigan + participle appear to have coexisted. According to Grønvik
(1986:36), the first example of a perfect (or rather, of a perfect-type
construction) with HAVE is only around thirty years younger than the
example of eigan above; it is given in (4:30) below. We can note that it
is not an unambiguous perfect either, but involves the transitive verb
gewirken ‘achieve’.
(4:30)
pi
daz er in uuerolti kiuuerkot hapeta
for that he in world achieved had
‘for that which he had achieved in the world’
(Muspilli c. 830:36; from Grønvik 1986:35f.)
The examples in (4:29) and (4:30) are the oldest examples of participles
in the complement of HAVE or eigan in the Old High German records
investigated by Grønvik. Grønvik’s study therefore suggests that Old
High German lacked both perfects and perfect-like constructions with
HAVE and eigan before the 9th century, or perhaps rather that examples
were too uncommon to be attested in the limited historical records.
The number of occurrences of participles with HAVE and eigan
increases somewhat during the 9th and 10th century (Grønvik 1986:36).
The text by Otfrid (c. 870) has 51 examples of participles embedded
under HAVE (33) or eigan (18). None of these involves a participle of
an intransitive verb. There are, however, two examples which according
to Grønvik (1986:37) lack objects; they are given in (4:31).
120
(4:31)
a.
b.
Laz iz sús thuruh gán, so wir éigun
let it so through go so we own
‘Let it happen the way we have now said’
(Otfrid c. 870:I 25:11)
nu gene al
éigun sus gidán
now those all own
so done
‘now they all have done so’
(Otfrid c. 870:III 18:36)
nu gispróchan
now said
It is not clear to me that these examples necessarily involve intransitive
structures. Both (4:31a) and (4:31b) involve verbs (sprechan ‘say’ and
duan ‘do, achieve’) which generally take complements, and both examples have a pronominal adverbial corresponding to English so. In
fact, it seems likely that (4:31a) has a relativized complement. Since
there are no clear examples of intransitive verbs in the complement of
HAVE in the text, it seems probable that also these examples should be
treated as transitive, and possibly ambiguous.
In the 10th century texts by Notker, there are more than 550 examples
of perfect-like constructions with HAVE or eigan, including a few unambiguous perfects; see the example in (4:32) (and cf. Dieninghoff
1904, Grønvik 1986:37). One of the examples involves eigan; see
(4:33).
(4:32)
so hábet er
gelógen
so has
he lied
‘so has he lied’
(Notker * c. 950:I 544; from Dieninghoff 1904:56)
(4:33)
Vuir eîgen gesúndot sáment únseren fórderon
we own
sinned
with
our
forefathers
‘We have sinned with our forefathers’
(Notker * c. 950:II 451; from Dieninghoff 1904:55)
Unlike Otfrid, Notker has examples of HAVE + participle and a genitive
or dative object; see (4:34).
(4:34)
a.
b.
ába sînemo únrehte . dés
ér
begúnnen hábeta
from his
injustice that.N.SG.GEN he begun
had
‘the injustice from which he had begun’
(Notker * c. 950:I 26; from Dieninghoff 1904:52)
Uuánda si
mír
áber nû gesuíchen hábet
as
she me.DAT but now left
has
‘as she yet now has left me’
(Notker * c. 950:I 8; from Grønvik 1986:37)
121
Schröder (1972) observes that the Latin perfect in a few cases corresponds to a perfect (i.e. HAVE/eigan + participle) in Notker’s translation of Boethius, but he also notes that the preterite is often preferred.
The Old Saxon Heliand (9th century) has one example of HAVE + a
participle of an unergative verb (see Grønvik 1986:62); it is given in
(4:35) below.
(4:35)
Thar fundun sea ênna gôdan man / aldan at them alaha,
ther found they a
good
man old
by the altar
aðalboranan, / the habda at them uuîha sô filu uuintro
aethling-born
that had at the
temple so many winters
endi sumaro / gilibd an them liohta
and summers lived in
the light
‘There they found a good old man by the altar, an aethling-born, that
had so many winters and summers lived by the temple, in the light.’
(Heliand 9th c.:6.463–466; from Grønvik 1986:62)
Considering the wider contexts, the example appears to have a universal
reading: the man who had lived by the altar for many summers and
winters could still be found there.
4.2.5. English
The status of the construction with HAVE + past participle in Old
English is debated (see e.g. Mitchell 1985, Brinton 1988:102, Carey
1994, 1995, Wischer 2004). Part of the reason is that the criteria for
distinguishing perfects from other constructions vary, and that neither
word order nor inflection provides any clear evidence for a perfect tense.
In Old English, participles in non-perfects did often not show any
agreement; see (4:36) which has the non-agreeing participles wund
‘wounded’ and berēafod ‘deprived’.88 It is well known that there was a
great deal of variation also in word order in Old English (see e.g. Kroch
& Taylor 2001).89
88
The translations of the examples from Beowulf are based on the translation by
Heaney (1999).
89 Mitchell (1985) assumes that participles never show agreement when they
precede the object, but this is not necessarily the case, at least not in the oldest texts;
cf. chapter 10.
122
(4:36)
Wīglāf lēofa, nū se
wyrm
ligeð, /
Wiglaf dearest now that dragon.M.SG.NOM lies
swefeð sāre
wund,
since
berēafod.
sleeps sorely wounded.N.SG treasure.N.SG.DAT deprived.N.SG
‘dearest Wiglaf, now that dragon lies dead, sleeps sorely wounded,
deprived of the treasure’
(Beowulf 2745f.)
Of the 46 examples of HAVE + participle in Beowulf, at least 4 have
dative or genitive objects; two are given in (4:37).
(4:37)
a.
b.
Nealles
ic ðām
lēanum
forloren hæfde
not.at.all I this.N.PL.DAT reward.N.PL.DAT lost
had
‘I had not at all lost this reward’
(Beowulf 2145)
hē þæt sōna
onfand / ðæt hæfde gumena sum
he that directly discovered that had
man
some
goldes
gefandod
gold.F.SG.GEN tampered.with
‘he directly discovered that some man had tampered with the gold’
(Beowulf 2300f.)
There are also examples of perfects with participles of stative transitive
verbs; see (4:38) which has the participle genesen ‘survived’.
(4:38)
Swā hē nīða
gehwane genesen hæfde
so he combat each
survived had
‘So he had survived each combat’
(Beowulf 2397)
There are a few examples of intransitive verbs with HAVE in Beowulf;
two of these are given in (4:39) below. Note that the example in (4:39b)
has a counterfactual reading. Counterfactual perfects will be discussed at
some length in chapter 5 below, where it will be argued that the occurrence of HAVE in past counterfactuals can be taken to support an
analysis of HAVE as a temporal auxiliary.
(4:39)
a.
oðþæt ymb āntīd
ōþres dōgores / wundenstefna
until
after due.time second day
curved.prow
gewaden hæfde / þæt ðā līðende
land gesāwon
gone
had
that the voyagers land sighted
‘until after due time the following day the curved prow had advanced
so that the voyagers sighted land’
(Beowulf 219–221)
123
b.
Hæfde ðā forsīðod sunu Ecgþēowes / under gynne grund,
had
then perished son Ecgtheow’s under wide earth
[...] nemne him heaðobyrne helpe gefremede
if.not him war-corslet help provided
‘The son of Ecgtheow would have perished under the wide earth, […]
if not his war-gear had provided him with help’
(Beowulf 1550)
As in Old High German, the frequency of perfect-type constructions
with HAVE is low. In Ælfric’s grammar (c. 1000), the perfect is not
distinguished as an English tense, and the English preterite is said to
correspond either to the simple past or the perfect in Latin (cf. Traugott
1972:91). As pointed out by Traugott (1992:182f.), both the present
tense and the simple past are used where Present-Day English has a
present perfect; see the examples in (4:40).90
(4:40)
a.
b.
Efne min wif is for manegum wintrum untrum
indeed my wife is for many
winters sick
‘Indeed my wife has been sick for many years.’
(Old English; Traugott 1992:182)
Fæder min, se
tima com
father mine that time came
‘Father, the time has come.’
(Old English; Traugott 1992:183)
I return to the distribution of perfect-type constructions with HAVE in
the Old English records in section 4.3 below.
4.2.6. Summary
Even if there are differences within Germanic, the early development is
in many ways parallel in the different languages and takes place during
roughly the same period. The starting point appears to be a perfect-like
construction which involves the participle formed with the suffixes
*-þa- or *-ena-/*-ana- and an originally possessive verb (HAVE or
eigan). We have seen that perfects and perfect-like constructions can be
very similar both formally and semantically, but that perfects are less
90
As pointed out in chapter 3 above (fn. 40), Present-Day Swedish allows
examples like (i) below, whereas Present-Day English does not; cf. (4:40a).
(i) Hon är sjuk sedan flera
år.
she is sick since several years
‘She has been sick for several years.’
124
restrictive as to e.g. what kinds of predicates they involve. Intransitive
verbs seem to appear somewhat later in the complement of HAVE than
transitive verbs do, presumably since they are not possible in perfectlike constructions with HAVE. The evidence discussed so far is,
arguably, rather weak; perfect-like constructions with possessive HAVE
(or eigan) are rare in the oldest Gothic and Old High German material.
It is likely that the participial forms have had some verbal properties
throughout the history of Germanic; in Gothic, en-participles apparently
form verbal passives with BE. If the participles had completely lacked
verbal or aspectual properties, it would seem a strange coincidence that
Germanic and Romance languages have employed them to form perfects
with HAVE (and/or BE). Rather than being just a historical accident, the
similarities depend on the properties of the participle in combination
with the properties of the verb HAVE, as well as on the older Germanic
temporal-aspectual system.
In subsequent chapters, I investigate the properties of perfect-like
constructions and participles in some detail. In the next section, I look
more closely at the early perfects and their frequencies.
4.3. Emerging perfects
Lightfoot (1999) argues that a grammatical change follows from
changes in the usage of a linguistic phenomenon; changes in the linguistic input leads the child to acquire a different grammar than the
parents. A plausible first step in the development of the perfect tense,
then, would be an increase in the frequency of the perfect-like construction with HAVE. We have seen that perfect-like examples with
HAVE were rare in the oldest Germanic sources; the Gothic Bible has
only one or two good examples, and they are rare (or missing) also in
the earliest Old High German records. The data reviewed so far does,
however, not suggest any substantial increase in the frequency of
constructions with HAVE preceding the first unambiguous examples of
perfects. The text by Otfrid (7104 couplets) has only 51 occurrences of
participles in perfect-type constructions with HAVE, whereas Notker
about a century later has more than 550 examples, including a few
unambiguous perfects (see above). Since the great majority of the early
examples are ambiguous between perfect-like and perfect readings, we
cannot exclude that the slightly increased frequencies are a consequence
of the reanalysis of the perfect-like construction as a perfect, rather than
a prerequisite. This would be more in line with work by Kroch (1989 et
125
seq.) who suggests, not that grammatical change results from changes in
frequencies, but, the other way around, that grammatical change causes
shifts in frequencies. (The two approaches, Lightfoot’s and Kroch’s, are
not necessarily mutually exclusive.)
In this section, I study the distribution of perfect-type constructions
with HAVE + participle in eight Old Scandinavian texts, and make
some comparisons with previous studies of Old and Middle English. In
the choice of texts, I take the results from the study by Ekbo (1943) into
consideration. Unlike Ekbo, I am, however, not primarily interested in
agreement patterns here, or in the connection between agreement and
word order.
4.3.1. Material
As a comparison to the data from previous studies, and the data
discussed in the previous section, I have investigated perfect-type
constructions with HAVE in four Old Norse texts and four Old Swedish
texts. The texts are listed in Table 4.2 and 4.3 below.
TABLE 4.2.
Text
The Poetic Edda
Grágás
Íslendingabók
Landnámabók
TABLE 4.3.
Investigated Old Norse texts.
Date
–
–
c. 1130
12th century
Text type
Poetry
Law
Prose, history
Prose, history
Size
c. 310 pp.
48 pp.
25 pp.
c. 135 pp.
Investigated Old Swedish texts.
Text
Äldre Västgötalagen (ÄVgL)
Upplandslagen (UL)
Gutalagen (GL)
Ett fornsvenskt legendarium (Leg)
Date
c. 1220
1297
c. 1300
c. 1300
Text type
Provincial Law
Provincial Law
Provincial Law
Legends
Size
71 pp.
275 pp.
104 pp.
533 pp.
Since the study requires the oldest possible sources, the choice of texts
is limited. The poetic Edda has been included since it seems clear that
its language reflects a stage older than most of the Old Norse prose (cf.
Ekbo 1943); the precise dating need not concern us here. As it is in
verse, it is not particularly well suited for studies of e.g. the order between verbs and their complements, nor can the frequencies of linguistic
126
phenomena in it be taken to reflect the spoken language of earlier times.
The present study mainly concerns perfects with intransitive verbs and
participial agreement (see chapter 10 below); it seems highly unlikely
that morphology would be produced if it were ungrammatical, or that
perfects that were grammatically unavailable were used (be it poetry or
prose). I avoid the Icelandic Skaldic poetry (which has been studied by
Ekbo 1943) and investigate two of the older prose texts, Íslendingabók
and Landnámabók, and one part (Vígslóði) of the Old Icelandic Law, the
Grágás, which is more conservative than the other two (see Ekbo
1943:61).91 The Swedish texts include one of the oldest religious texts
(Ett fornsvenskt legendarium) and three laws (Äldre Västgötalagen,
Gutalagen and Upplandslagen).92 Äldre Västgötalagen is the oldest
preserved Swedish text in the Latin alphabet. Gutalagen is in a Swedish
dialect spoken on the island Gotland in the Baltic; its language is
conservative (cf. Ekbo 1943:8). Upplandslagen is from Central Sweden.
It was the first law to be ratified by the Swedish king, and it was the
model for several younger laws (see Larsson 2004). The electronic
version of Gutalagen does not include the short Guta saga (10 pages). I
have investigated the Guta saga by hand, but I have not noted any
examples of perfect-type constructions with HAVE in it.
The study of the Edda is based on the list of examples given by Ekbo
(1943); the prose is not included.93 In the Swedish texts, which have
91
Only the parts of the edition of Landnámabók that come from Sturlubók have
been investigated.
92 There are two relatively complete 15th century manuscripts of Ett fornsvenskt
legendarium, and an older, but incomplete, manuscript from the 14th century (Codex
Bureanus). I have investigated (an edition of) the latter. The text is based on a Latin
original. Moreover, I have used Codex A of UL since it is available in electronic
form, even if it is not the version that is closest to the original (see Larsson 2004 for
discussion). It is unlikely that this choice affects the results in any significant way;
as we will see below, all four Swedish texts behave alike. ÄVgL is preserved in
fragments and in a manuscript from the second half of the 13th century. The age of
GL is hard to determine, since it is written in dialect, but it is generally assumed to
be from c. 1300; the manuscript is from the middle of the 14th century.
93 The Eddic material includes a few poems that are not from the Codex Regius,
but which are included in the edition by Neckel (1936), as well as in Ekbo’s (1943)
study. Neckel’s (1936) edition has normalized spelling, and I therefore follow the
edition by Neckel & Kuhn (1962) with regard to spelling, with the exception of
examples from Grógaldr and Fiǫlsvinnzmál, which are not included in the younger
edition. For the interpretation of the examples, I follow Ekbo (1943) and the
Swedish translation by Brate (1913). The analysis of the individual examples
sometimes differs from Ekbo’s, mainly since he counts examples with object-drop
as intransitive. One uncertain example has been disregarded; it is given in (i) below.
127
been examined electronically, all forms of HAVE have been investigated. The material includes all participles embedded under HAVE,
independently of their reading. Since nothing suggests that the tense of
the auxiliary matters in the development, present and past perfect-type
constructions are treated together.
In Old Swedish, as in Present-Day Swedish, non-finite temporal
HAVE can be omitted in certain contexts, as noted above. Cases where
the non-finite auxiliary HAVE is omitted have not been collected in the
electronic texts.94
4.3.2. Verbs in the complement of HAVE
If the increase in the usage of perfect-type constructions with HAVE in
Old Germanic is a consequence of reanalysis, we might expect it to
affect all kinds of predicates in the same way; in the modern Germanic
languages atelic and telic, or transitive and intransitive, predicates are
equally possible in perfects. In this section, I consider the occurrence of
HAVE with participles of different kinds of verbs in Old Scandinavian
and in Old and Middle English.
4.3.2.1. Distinguishing verb types
I have sorted the participles in the material according to verb class (i.e.,
whether they occur in a transitive or intransitive structure); as noted in
section 4.2 above, intransitive verbs are not expected to form perfectlike constructions with HAVE. Since unaccusatives occur in perfecttype constructions with BE (see section 2.4.1 above and chapter 5
below), I distinguish between unergative verbs (e.g. work and sleep) and
unaccusative verbs (arrive, become). Variable behaviour verbs in telic
Ekbo analyses it as a rare (unique?) case of verða ‘become’ in a transitive structure
(1943:51); as the translation in (i) suggests, there are alternatives which perhaps lie
closer at hand.
(i) kvódoz okkr hafa orðit
bæði
said
us have become both
Possible interpretation: ‘claimed us to have come together/become one’
(Edda Od. 23)
94 There might also be individual examples where HAVE is misspelt (e.g. where h
is missing) or given in brackets (i.e., cases where the edition and the manuscript
differ) that have not been covered.
128
contexts, as in (4:41a), are included among the unaccusatives. Atelic
variable behaviour verbs, as in (4:41b), on the other hand, are counted as
unergatives.95
(4:41)
a.
b.
þe sagþo sik
haua sighalt af nicomedia
they said REFL have sailed from Nicomedia
‘they claimed to have sailed from Nicomedia’
(Leg c. 1300:523)
Galtr ir at þriþia en hann hafr þria vintra fastr
gangit
boar is as third if he
has three winters ungelded gone
‘Thirdly, a boar is, if he has gone ungelded for three years’
(GL c.1300:17)
As noted in section 4.1.4 above, also the distinction between eventive
and stative predicates is relevant, since stative verbs do not occur in
perfect-like constructions with HAVE. There are, however, no clear-cut
ways of distinguishing eventive from stative predicates in the historical
material, and typically stative verbs often have also inchoative uses; cf.
(4:42a) where the verb understanda ‘understand’ has a stative reading
and (4:42b) where it has an inchoative reading.
(4:42)
a.
b.
han […] vet
alt. ok vndistar
alla tungor
he
knows all and understands all tongues
‘He knows everything and understands all languages’
(Leg c. 1300:204)
þa vndistoþ
þæt portugalie kunugar. ok kom mz
then understood that Portuguese kings
and came with
sinom hær tel yspanie kunugs.
his
army to Spanish king
‘then the Portuguese king realized it and came with his army to the
Spanish king’
(Leg c. 1300:177)
Since few examples in the material are unambiguously stative, I disregard the distinction between stative and eventive predicates when
giving frequencies.
The Icelandic -sk-verbs (-st in Present-Day Icelandic) do not form a
homogeneous semantic-syntactic class; some of them have a mediopassive reading (see e.g. Anderson 1990, Thráínsson 2007:283ff.). Since
most -sk-forms are ungrammatical in the complement of BE, they are
not included among the unaccusatives; cf. the (Present-Day) Icelandic
95
There are no occurrences of semelfactives (e.g. hiccup) embedded under HAVE
in the investigated texts.
129
verbs koma ‘come’ and ferðast ‘travel’ in the examples in (4:43) and
(4:44) below. I treat the -sk-verbs separately.
(4:43)
Ég er komin
til Grænlands.
I am come.PTC.F.SG.NOM to Greenland
’I have come to Greenland.’
(4:44)
* Ég er ferðast
til Grænlands.
I am travelled.ST to Greenland
(from Anderson 1990:243)
The distinction between transitive and unergative structures is complicated by the possibility of implicit objects. Examples like those in (4:45)
with an implicit pronominal object can quite uncontroversially be treated as transitive.
(4:45)
a.
b.
at
þeir skyldu drepa uxann ok segja, at
that they should kill
the.ox and say
that
skógarbjǫrn hefði drepit
wood.bear
had killed
‘that they should kill the ox and say that a wood bear had killed [it]’
(Landnámabók 12th c.:43)
ok siþæn swæri þæn til sins. sum mist hawær.
and then
swear that to REFL who lost has
‘and then he who has lost [the property] swears that it was his’
(UL 1297:Mb. 54)
Examples like those in (4:46) are more problematic, since the implicit
element is not a pronoun. In order to keep the group of intransitive verbs
more homogeneous, these are also counted as involving transitive structures. They generally have a telic reading.
(4:46)
a.
b.
ok hafði Helgi brœðrungr hans numit þar áðr.
and had Helgi first.cousin his taken there before
‘and had his first cousin Helgi taken [land] there before’
(Landnámabók 12th c.:54)
es
enir spǫkustu menn á
landi hér hǫfðu talit
that the wisest
men in
land here had
counted
í tveim misserum fjóra daga ens
fjórða
hundraðs
in two
half.years four days that.GEN the.fourth hundred.GEN
‘that the wisest men in this land had counted [the year] in two half
years and four days into the fourth hundred.’
(Íslendingabók c. 1130:9)
130
c.
Nu sighær lænsman mæþ aþrum witnum
sworit hawæ.
now says
sheriff
with other witnesses sworn have
‘Now the sheriff says that they have sworn [oath] with other
witnesses’
(UL 1297:Þb. 9)
The group of transitive verbs includes eventive predicates with nominal
(accusative, dative and genitive), verbal and clausal complements, as
well as a couple of cases of prepositional objects, as in (4:47) below.
Also the rare cases of reflexives, as in (4:48), are considered transitive. I
have not attempted to distinguish so-called free dative Experiencers
from true argument datives.
(4:47)
þeir hǫfðu þar spurt
til Ingólfs vinar síns.
they had
there heard to Ingólf friend POSS.REFL
‘they had from that place heard of their friend Ingolf’
(Landnámabók 12th c.:68)
(4:48)
móðan
hafði hann sic druccit
exhausted had he REFL drunk
‘he had drunk himself exhausted’
(Edda Akv. 40)
Accusative DPs can sometimes function as adverbials; these are possible
with different kinds of predicates and are not treated as objects here. The
example in (4:49) below is therefore counted as involving an unergative
predicate. As with reflexives and prepositional objects, the number of
cases is too small to skew the results significantly.
(4:49)
En þrel
þan sum ort
hafr mala
a
thrall who that worked has agreement
‘a thrall who has worked the time of his contract’
(GL c.1300:16)
In the following, I give an overview of the types of predicates that occur
with HAVE in the Old Scandinvian records. I investigate how many of
the perfect-type examples with HAVE + participle involve unaccusative,
unergative or transitive predicates, and I do not consider the frequency
of perfects with the different kinds of predicates. Differences between
texts and languages, and shifts in the relative frequencies, may still
indicate change; unaccusatives and unergatives are as noted only possible in perfects, whereas transitive verbs also occur in the complement
of possessive HAVE.
131
4.3.2.2. Perfect-type constructions with HAVE in the Scandinavian
material
The Old Norse data are summarized in Table 4.4. Of the total 329 participles in perfect-type constructions with HAVE, 22 (7 %) involve
unaccusatives, and 61 (19’%) other intransitive verbs; vera ‘be’ alone
occurs in perfects 35 times. The difference between the investigated
texts is small, but a larger part of the examples in the Eddic poetry and
in the Grágás involve transitive verbs than in the two other texts.
TABLE 4.4.
Verbs in the complement of HAVE in four Old Norse
texts.
Text
Unaccusative
Edda
7 (5 %)
Grágás
4 (4 %)
Íslendingabók
4 (14 %)
Landnámabók
7 (12 %)
TOTAL
22 (7 %)
Unergative
21 (14 %)
12 (13 %)
11 (38 %)
17 (29 %)
61 (19 %)
-sk-forms
1 (1 %)
2 (2 %)
2 (7 %)
3 (5 %)
8 (2 %)
Transitive
119 (80 %)
76 (81 %)
12 (41 %)
31 (53 %)
238 (72 %)
ALL
148
94
29
58
329
The pattern in Old Swedish is similar to that in the Edda and the
Grágás, at least with regard to verb types; see Table 4.5. The difference
between the Swedish texts is marginal.
TABLE 4.5.
Text
ÄVgL
UL
GL
Leg
TOTAL
Verbs in the complement of HAVE in four Old Swedish
texts.
Unaccusative
0 (0 %)
2 (1 %)
0 (0 %)
3 (3 %)
5 (1 %)
Unergative
6 (14 %)
24 (12 %)
5 (13 %)
15 (15 %)
50 (13 %)
Transitive
36 (86 %)
181 (87 %)
35 (88 %)
83 (82 %)
335 (86 %)
ALL
42
207
40
101
390
We can note that the number of unaccusatives embedded under HAVE
(1 % in all) is lower in Swedish than in Old Norse (7 %). In both languages, examples of participles of unaccusative verbs embedded under
HAVE generally have an experiential reading, as in (4:50a) below, or a
counterfactual reading, as in (4:50b). Unaccusative verbs otherwise form
perfect-type constructions with BE; I return to this in chapter 5.
132
(4:50)
a.
b.
þvíat hvern hefi ec heim
um komit
for every have I world PRT come
‘for I have come into every world’
(Edda Vm. 43)
hafþe þin kona hær comit. aldre skulde hon hæþan
had
your wife here come never would she away
coma: liuande:
come living
‘if your wife had come here, she would never get away alive’
(Leg c. 1300:19)
The relative frequency of transitive verbs is higher (86 % in all) in the
Swedish texts than in Íslendingabók and Landnámabók, as in the Eddic
poetry and the Icelandic law. The reason for this difference is not
necessarily grammatical, but may depend on the different contents of the
texts. Examples like (4:51) are typical for Íslendingabók and Landnámabók, but are rare in the other texts in the material.
(4:51)
es
Gizurr byskup hafði einn vetr
verit hér á landi
when Gizurr bishop had one winter been here in country
‘when Gizurr had been bishop here in the country for one year’
(Íslendingabók c. 1130:22)
The laws, on the other hand, have a larger number of occurrences involving verbs like köpa ‘buy,’ sälia ‘sell,’ and giälda ‘pay’. In most of
the cases, the reading is perfect rather than perfect-like; the focus is on
the responsibility of the matrix subject rather than on the target state of
the participial event; cf. (4:52a) and (4:52b) where it is important who is
the Agent of the killing, and not necessarily who is in the target state of
being killed.
(4:52)
a.
b.
ok sighær han fyrræ hawæ banæn
dræpit. dyli
and says
he before have
the.killer killed confirm
mæþ twæggiæ mannæ eþe.
with two
men
oath
‘and says he has earlier killed the killer. This is confirmed with the
oath of two men.’
(UL 1297:Mb. 1)
kiærir annæt
þeræ
til þæs
sum dræpit hawær.
charges the.other of.them to the.one who killed has
‘one of them makes a charge against him who has killed [the child]’
(UL 1297:Mb. 7)
133
Stative verbs like BE and HAVE occur in the complement of HAVE in
all investigated Scandinavian text; see the examples in (4:53) and (4:54).
In ÄVgL, there is only a single example; it is given in (4:54c).
(4:53)
(4:54)
urðr
ǫðlinga
hefir þú æ
verið
weird prince.PL.GEN have you always been
‘the nemesis of princes you have always been’
(Edda Gðr. I 24)
a.
b.
c.
oc taki laun
eptir þi
sum
þriþiungr hafr
and take compensation after that which a.third
has
fyr wana hapt.
for habit
had
‘and take compensation as the third part before has had as habit’
(GL c.1300:42)
en hælaghar man […] som stephanus domare mæþan han
a
holy
man
who Stephanus judge while he
lifþe hafþe værþoghan hauat.
lived had worthy
had
‘a holy man who the judge Stephanus had held in high esteem while
he lived’
(Leg c. 1300:418)
at
byr.
þænni havir varit fullbyr
bæþi i heþnu
that village this
has been full.village both in heathen
ok kristnu.
and Christian
‘that this village has been a full village both in heathen and Christian
[times]’
(ÄVgL c. 1220:Jb. 15)
Moreover, there are instances of universal and experiential perfects in
all investigated Scandinavian texts; examples from ÄVgL with intransitive verbs are given in (4:55a) and (4:55b) below.
(4:55)
a.
b.
Þerra
skal
hvarghum innæn garz.
kallæ þær sum
they.GEN should none
inside fence call
there that
standit havir þrea vætær ok þ[r]im. længær.
stood has three winters and three longer
‘Of them should none demand a border inside a fence that has been
standing for three years or longer than three.’
(ÄVgL c. 1220:Jb. 16)
Giuær maþær manni sak.
at
han havir lighæt hos
gives a.man man
cause that he has laid
with
huskono
hans.
thrall.woman his
‘If a man accuses a man that he slept with his thrall woman’
(ÄVgL c. 1220:Gb. 5)
134
Hence, there is clear evidence for a perfect tense in all the investigated
texts. Differences between the languages and texts (that are not due to
the different contents of the texts) primarily relate to the frequency of
unaccusatives with BE; this is the topic of chapter 5 below.
There is one further difference between the texts in the material.
Many of the examples in the Edda and the Grágás have agreeing
participles, while there are no examples of agreeing participles in the
complement of HAVE in Íslendingabók and Landnámabók and only a
few examples in the Swedish material. I return to agreement in chapter
10 below. In the next section, I consider data from previous studies of
Old and Middle English.
4.3.2.3. English
As in the Old Scandinavian material, there are examples of participles of
intransitive verbs in the complement of HAVE in the Old English
records. Participles of transitive verbs are, however, considerably more
common. According to Wischer (2004:245), 6 % (13) of the 232
occurrences of HAVE + participle in the Old English part of the
Helsinki Corpus involve intransitive verbs; 94 % (219) are transitive.96
Carey (1994, 1995) presents similar numbers; see the data in Table 4.6
below (from Table 1 in Carey 1994).97 In the Old English material, only
3 % (5/200) of the present perfects involve intransitive verbs. There is
no significant difference between the 9th century and the 11th century.
Even in Carey’s Early Middle English material, the frequency of in–
transitive verbs in perfects is low.
96
I include also Wischer’s “subject complement” in the intransitive verbs (1 example). The group of transitive verbs includes examples with genitive objects, prepositional objects and clausal objects, as well as accusative object DPs.
97 Here, the group ‘transitive verbs’ includes Carey’s mental state verbs, reporting
verbs and perception verbs, as well as the group of ‘other verbs’. In Old English, the
mental state verbs (e.g. understand) could have a telic, non-stative reading (Carey
1994:107 fn. 1).
135
TABLE 4.6.
Text
Alfred (c. 850)
Ælfric (c. 1050)
Early Middle
English
(1100–1250)
TOTAL
Verbs in the complement of present tense HAVE in Old
and Early Middle English (adapted from Carey 1994:
107, her Table 1).
Eventive
intransitive
2 (2 %)
3 (3 %)
3 (5 %)
8 (3 %)
Stative
intransitive
0 (0 %)
0 (0 %)
3 (5 %)
Transitive
ALL
91 (98 %)
104 (97 %)
55 (90 %)
93
107
61
3 (1 %)
250 (96 %)
261
The first clear examples with participles of (transitive or intransitive)
stative verbs embedded under HAVE appear in the Middle English
period (Carey 1994:107). Carey (1995), who investigates also a 14th
century text, notes a further increase in the cases with stative predicates
from 4 % (7/161) in the 13th century to 15 % (7/47) in the 14th century
(1995:86).98 Also with regard to the types of adverbials occurring in
perfect-type examples, there is a change between the 11th and the 14th
century. In Carey’s (1995) Old English material, there are no occurrences of past time adverbials such as before that time or since then,
whereas more than a third of the examples have present adverbials like
now (1995:86, Table 3). In the 13th century, 5 % (8/161) of the perfecttype examples have a past tense adverbial, and in the 14th century 15 %
(7/47) do. At the same time, the number of present state adverbials
drops; in the 14th century material there are no examples (1995:86f.,
Table 3). With the usual reservations for the limited material and the
differences between varieties, the development of the perfect in English
therefore seems to take place mainly at the beginning of and during the
Middle English period.
Although the frequency of intransitive verbs (unaccusative + unergative) is lower in the Old Swedish texts (14 %) than in the Icelandic
material (26 %, or, including -sk-forms, 28 %), it is still markedly higher
than in Old English (6 % in Wischer 2004, 3 % in Carey 1994). Though
the data only gives the frequency of intransitive verbs among perfects,
without considering how frequent they are in the simple tenses, we
would clearly expect a higher number of intransitive verbs in the Old
English material if the perfect was equally established in Old English
98
Carey gives the frequency 10.6 % for stative verbs in her 14th century material;
given the numbers in her Table 2, this is incorrect (see Carey 1995:86).
136
and Old Scandinavian, particularly since participles of the copula BE are
included in the material. Even in the very limited corpus of Scandinavian Viking Age Runic inscriptions there are a few examples of
perfects of BE, as illustrated above; in Carey’s Old English material,
there is not a single one. Since stative intransitive verbs appear in the
complement of HAVE somewhat later than eventive intransitives do, we
could assume that the perfect does not occur with all kinds of predicates
at the same time. A different possibility would be to say that a perfect
has not emerged until all groups of verbs can occur in the complement
of HAVE. I return to these possibilities in chapter 10.
In any case, the general picture is that the Old Scandinavian languages had a perfect tense with the same basic syntax-semantics as the
modern languages. In Old English, on the other hand, the perfect was
not yet fully established.
4.3.3. Frequencies of perfects
I have noted a difference between Old Scandinavian and Old English
with regard to types of verbs that are embedded under HAVE. However,
even in Old English, there are a few examples of participles of intransitive verbs in the complement of HAVE. To some extent, the difference
between Old English, on the one hand, and Old Norse and Old Swedish,
on the other, appears to be a matter of frequency. As observed in section
4.2.5 above, Beowulf has examples of stative as well as of intransitive
verbs in the complement of HAVE. In this respect, Beowulf appears to
be more modern than the Old English texts investigated by Carey
(1994).
Also in the oldest Scandinavian texts, the frequency of perfects seems
rather low; in ÄVgL, there is, in fact, only one example of a stative verb
in the complement of HAVE. In order to get an estimate of the frequency of perfects, I have calculated the ratio of participles of the verb
vara ‘be’ of all occurrences of the verb in UL; as participles of vara ‘be’
do not occur outside the perfect this gives the frequency of perfects for
this verb.99 For comparison, I have done the same thing with a balanced
corpus of Present-Day Swedish, the SUC-corpus. The results are summarized in Table 4.7 below.
99
59).
The UL numbers are calculated on the basis of the data in Schagerström (1911:
137
TABLE 4.7.
Text
UL
SUC
Frequency of perfects of the verb vara ‘be’ in UL and
SUC.
# perfects of vara/all forms
15/1619
968/21867
% perfect
0.9 %
4.4 %
In UL, only 0.9 % of the occurrences with vara involve perfects. In
SUC, the corresponding number is almost five times higher, 4.4 %. It
could perhaps be argued that the difference depends on the particular
style of the Old Swedish law; we do not have a balanced corpus of Old
Swedish comparable to SUC, and we know that the frequencies of perfects can vary considerably between texts (see e.g. Elsness 1997). The
present tense is far more common than the simple past in the Old
Swedish laws: in UL, only 6.8 % of the forms of vara are in the past
indicative, compared to 31 % in SUC.
However, also in texts where the simple past is the dominant tense,
the frequency of perfects is low. For the Old Swedish texts in the
material, I have calculated the frequency of HAVE + participle of all
words; see Table 4.8 below. The number of words should be taken as a
rough estimate; it includes all strings of numbers and letters separated
by space on both sides, also e.g. paragraph numbers. In Ett fornsvenskt
legendarium (Leg), which is a narrative text where the past tense dominates, the number of perfects per words (0.28 %) is even lower than in
UL (0.43 %).
TABLE 4.8.
Text
ÄVgL (c. 1220)
UL (1297)
GL (c. 1300)
Leg (c. 1300)
TOTAL
The overall frequency of HAVE + participles in the Old
Swedish material.
# HAVE + participle/word
42/15010
207/48148
37/12540
101/36176
387/111874
% HAVE + participle /word
0.28 %
0.43 %
0.30 %
0.28 %
0.35 %
It would in fact be surprising if the perfect tense were as common in the
Old Scandinavian languages as it is in the present-day languages; we do
not expect any rapid shifts in the frequencies of a linguistic phenomenon. On the contrary, language change typically proceeds along an sshaped trajectory (see e.g. Kroch 1989, 2001). In the case of the development of the perfect, speakers that have a perfect tense in their
138
grammar generally have a choice between using a perfect tense or a
simple tense. When the perfect is new to the language community and
not yet acceptable to all speakers, it is expected to be the marked
choice.100 In connection with the spread in the language community, it
will also become more established in the usage of the individual
speaker, and more unmarked. In English, the frequency of perfects with
HAVE appears to have risen steadily in English throughout the period
1150–1710, as expected. In the period 1150–1250, 0.33 % of all clauses
in the Penn-Helsinki Parsed Corpus of Middle English were perfects
with HAVE; between 1640–1710, the frequency of perfects is 1.18 % in
the Penn-Helsinki Parsed Corpus of Early Modern English (McFadden
& Alexiadou 2006a:277, Table 1; cf. Elsness 1997:264 Table 4.1). Of
the Old Swedish texts investigated here, UL is expected to give the most
modern impression (due partly to its Central Swedish origin); it also has
the highest frequency of perfects.
In the following chapters, we will see further changes in the distribution of perfects and perfect-like constructions in Swedish up until the
18th century, and variations in the implications of the constructions. In
chapter 10, the development will be investigated in more detail.
4.4. Borrowing and areal diffusion
It has traditionally been assumed that the development of the perfect in
Germanic is dependent on parallel developments in Romance (see e.g.
Meillet 1917:129f., Brinkmann 1931:26f., 52f., Lockwood 1968:115,
Drinka 2003).101 Supposedly, then, the emergence of perfects in Germanic is due to syntactic borrowing and areal diffusion.
However, there is reason to take the development in the Germanic
languages to be largely independent from Romance influence. First,
100
The possibility of choice between tenses makes the development of the perfect
significantly different from changes in e.g. word order, where there is often not a
choice between alternatives at the end of the change. Nevertheless, also changes in
word order follows an s-shaped curve, and speakers tend to disprefer the new
alternant at the beginning of the change.
101 The Germanic strong preterite is formally the same as the perfects in Sanskrit
and Classical Greek (see e.g. Meid 1971, Szemerényi 1996). An old assumption is
that the Sanskrit and Greek systems are primary to the Germanic, and that the
Germanic temporal-aspectual system has developed by simplification and reduction
of the old Indo-European system. It is noteworthy that the Germanic languages have
preserved the old forms more or less intact, but as past tense forms. For the present
purposes, a discussion would lead too far afield.
139
even the limited data from the oldest Germanic sources give some
evidence for a development from a perfect-like construction to a perfect,
and it is therefore empirically unsatisfying to assume that the periphrastic perfect is simply borrowed from Late Latin.
Secondly, the assumption that the development of the perfect in
Germanic is dependent on influence from Latin perfect-like constructions (as suggested by Meillet 1917) is problematic. As we have seen,
perfect-like constructions (and perfects) are far more common in the Old
Norse Poetic Edda than in the Gothic Bible and the text by Otfrid, and
Beowulf even seems more modern than other Old English texts.102 An
account in terms of diffusion would arguably have to assume a spread
from Romance via the Scandinavian languages to English and German
as appearing in the religious 10th century texts; from what we know of
contact and substratum effects this is highly improbable. The Latin influence on the Scandinavian languages has generally come via German,
and not the other way around.
Moreover, the Old Germanic languages originally lacked perfect
forms, and an account in terms of borrowing would have to assume that
functional material was transferred between languages that had partly
different temporal-aspectual systems. Even in a case of extensive bilingualism, that kind of transfer is unlikely, if not impossible. More
importantly, even if borrowing were involved, the recipient language
would either already allow the borrowed construction (in which case
there is no reason to talk about language change in the usual sense) or
change so as to allow it (in which case the prerequisites for the change
had to be present). In other words, the development cannot be understood as either grammatical change or syntactic borrowing. An account
in terms of syntactic borrowing has little to say about the way the
grammatical change is to be understood; at best, it gives an extra-linguistic cause, but without connecting it to the grammars of the speakers.
Contact between people (i.e., communication) is necessary for language
to change, but it cannot be invoked as an alternative to grammatical
change.
Since an approach based on syntactic borrowing raises more questions than it answers, it will not be pursued further (but see Morris 1991
and Abraham 2004 for comprehensive discussion and additional arguments).
102
Although the text by Otfrid is not a pure translation, it is influenced by Latin
and Greek texts. Otfrid is generally assumed to be the first to use end rhymes in
German poetry.
140
4.5. Concluding remarks
This chapter has given an overview of perfect-type constructions with
HAVE in some of the oldest Germanic sources, focusing particularly on
what presumably are unambiguous perfects. We have seen that Gothic
and the earliest Old High German lacked a perfect tense; given that the
semantics of the perfect is tied to structure and morphology, they did not
just lack the expression of a perfect. Perfect-like constructions with
HAVE are rare in both Gothic and Old High German. There is some
evidence for a perfect tense in Beowulf, but the development of the perfect appears to take place mainly in Middle English; this is when stative
verbs occur more generally in the complement of HAVE. The Scandinavian languages have a perfect tense already in the earliest sources,
though it is used less frequently than in the modern languages.
It has sometimes been suggested that individual speakers are bilingual
in a situation of language change, in the sense that they have acquired
both the new and the old grammar (see e.g. Kroch 1989, 2001). Under
this view, syntactic change leads to competition between grammars. At
the beginning of the change, the old grammar is preferred, but as the
new grammar gains preference, the new phenomenon will also be more
frequent; the preference for one grammar over the other is assumed to
depend on (unspecified) extra-linguistic factors.
With respect to the development of the perfect from a perfect-like
construction, there is no reason to assume that competition between
grammars is involved; nothing excludes that perfects and perfect-like
constructions are derived by one and the same grammar. In Present-Day
Swedish, an example like (4:19a) above (repeated as (4:56) below) is
ambiguous: it is either a perfect-like construction with an implicit object
pronoun det ‘it’, or a perfect.
(4:56)
Hon har alltid städat hemma.
she has always cleaned at.home
i. ‘She always has a clean home.’
ii. ‘She has always cleaned at home.’
Examples of possessive HAVE + past participle are attested also in Old
Germanic languages like Gothic, but they were not ambiguous. Since
Gothic lacked a perfect tense, examples corresponding to (4:56) only
had a stative, perfect-like interpretation. The perfect, we can assume,
emerges when the perfect-like construction is interpreted as involving a
structure of a perfect, i.e. a biclausal structure with a temporal auxiliary
which embeds a non-finite past tense. One prerequisite for this is mor-
141
phological; it must be possible for speakers to interpret the morphology
of the perfect-like construction as spelling out the structure of a perfect.
Another prerequisite is that the perfect-like construction has an interpretation similar to that of a perfect tense.
To get further, we need to consider the syntax of perfect-like constructions, as well as questions concerning case, agreement and the difference between unaccusative and unergative verbs. In the following
chapters, I investigate the properties of perfect-like constructions, considering both historical and modern data. I return to the early Germanic
perfects in chapter 10.
142
5. The HAVE/BE alternation in older Swedish
In the previous chapter, I examined the early occurrences of perfects
with HAVE in the Germanic languages. So far, I have not discussed
perfect-type constructions with BE, nor in any detail investigated the
perfect-like construction that the HAVE-perfect presumably originates
from. However, in order to understand the historical development of the
perfect, the question how perfect-like constructions should be analysed
and how they relate to perfects is clearly of importance. This is the topic
of this and the following chapters.
One way of addressing the relation between perfects and perfect-like
constructions is to consider cases where there is an alternation between
the two, as in (5:1) below. In Present-Day Swedish, unaccusative verbs
have active participles in the complement of BE as well as in the complement of HAVE; as we will see, the former is a perfect-like construction whereas the latter is a perfect.
(5:1)
a.
b.
Flyget
är redan anlänt.
the.flight is already arrived
Flyget
har redan anlänt.
the.flight has already arrived
‘The flight has already arrived.’
In Present-Day Swedish, examples like (5:1a) are restricted, while examples like (5:1b) are rare in Old Swedish. It is therefore often assumed
that BE was a temporal auxiliary in older Swedish, as in Present-Day
Danish, and that older Swedish differs from Present-Day Swedish in this
respect (see e.g. Johannisson 1945, Larsson 2007). Perfects with HAVE
+ unaccusatives were, however, not completely ungrammatical in older
Swedish, which they are in Present-Day Danish. In an extensive study of
the Old Norse and older Swedish records, Johannisson (1945) observes
that there are several contexts that favour HAVE over BE; these include
e.g. iterative and counterfactual contexts.
In this chapter, I investigate the distribution of HAVE and BE with
unaccusative verbs in older Swedish, taking Johannisson’s (1945) study
as a starting point. It turns out that while the construction with BE
143
shares several characteristics with the perfect, it differs from the perfect
in important respects also in older Swedish, most notably with regard to
the temporal interpretation of counterfactuals. I will argue that the
difference between perfects and perfect-like constructions relates to the
temporal value of the participle in older Swedish, as well as in PresentDay Swedish. At the same time, the fact that the construction with BE +
active participle was less restricted in older Swedish than it is in Present-Day Swedish, and apparently had more in common with a perfect,
calls for finer distinctions among the perfect-like constructions. This is
the topic of chapter 6 below.
The chapter is organized as follows. In section 5.1, I introduce some
of the properties of perfect-type constructions with BE + participle in
the present-day languages. Section 5.2 presents the investigated material, and 5.3 gives an overview of the alternation HAVE/BE in older
Swedish. In section 5.4, I consider examples with HAVE or BE which
have a counterfactual reading, and discuss what counterfactuals can tell
us about tense morphology. Section 5.5 investigates some of the contexts that favour HAVE according to Johannisson (1945). In particular, I
consider the distribution of HAVE and BE in examples with an experiential reading, and the effects of adverbial modification on the choice of
auxiliary.
5.1. Perfect-type constructions with BE + participle
In this section, I briefly introduce the properties of the construction with
BE + participle in the present-day Scandinavian languages. Since stative
passives are of some importance in the discussion, I give some diagnostics that distinguish stative from eventive passives. The description
is preliminary and will be modified and nuanced in the following.
5.1.1. BE + active participle
Among the present-day Scandinavian languages, only Danish has a split
auxiliary system: unaccusative verbs form perfects with BE, while
transitive and unergative verbs form perfects with HAVE; cf. the Danish
examples in (5:2) and (5:3) (see e.g. Vikner & Sprouse 1988, Platzack
144
1988a and chapter 2 above).103 As noted, HAVE is largely ungrammatical with unaccusative verbs, and BE is not used with unergatives.
(5:2)
a.
b.
c.
(5:3)
a.
b.
c.
Han er/*har kommet.
he is/has come
‘He has come.’
Der er/*har sket
noget.
there is/has happened something
‘Something has happened.’
Han er/*har vokset meget.
he is/has grown much
‘He has grown much.’
Jeg *er/har boet
i Stockholm.
I
am/have lived in Stockholm
‘I have lived in Stockholm.’
Jeg *er/har
arbejdet med artiklen.
I
am/have worked with the.paper
‘I have worked with the paper.’
Han *er/har sovet længe.
she is/has slept long
‘He has slept for a long time.’
Stative verbs, including BE, form perfects with HAVE in Danish; see
(5:4a).104 The verb BECOME, on the other hand, has a perfect with BE;
see (5:4b).
(5:4)
a.
b.
Hun *er/har været der i
20 år.
she is/has been
there for 20 years
‘She has been there for 20 years.’
Artiklen er/*har blevet færdig.
the.paper is/has become finished
‘The paper has been finished.’
In Swedish, Norwegian and Icelandic, HAVE is the only perfect auxiliary; see the Swedish perfects in (5:5) below.
(5:5)
103
a.
Han har kommit hit.
he has come here
‘He has come here.’
Faroese largely patterns with Icelandic, but might be on its way towards a
system like the Danish (see Thráinsson et al. 2004:73).
104 Stative verbs generally form perfects with HAVE also in German. However, the
verb BE has a perfect with BE in German.
145
b.
c.
Artikeln har blivit färdig.
the.paper has become finished
‘The paper has been finished.’
Han har vuxit mycket.
he has grown much
‘He has grown much.’
However, as mentioned, active participles are not always illicit in the
complement of BE, as they are in English; cf. Icelandic in (5:6) and the
corresponding English examples in (5:7); passive readings are disregarded.105 Hence, in Swedish, Norwegian and Icelandic, there is sometimes a choice between a perfect with HAVE and a construction with
BE with unaccusative verbs.
(5:6)
a.
b.
(5:7)
Hann er nýlega kominn hingað.
he
is recently come here
‘He has recently come here.’
Skipið er sokkið og liggur á sjávarbotni
the.ship is sunk
and lies
on the.ocean.floor
‘The ship has sunk and lies on the ocean floor.’
a. * He is recently come here.
b. * The ship is sunk and lies on the ocean floor.
Like a perfect, the construction with BE + active participle conveys that
the participial event is anterior to the time of the auxiliary; the example
in (5:6a) involves the adverb nýlega ‘recently’. However, unlike perfects, and like perfect-like constructions with HAVE, the construction
with BE is generally incompatible with an experiential reading (but see
further section 5.5 and chapter 6). Instead, it asserts that the target state
of the participial event holds, just like a perfect-like construction with
HAVE; (5:8a) can, in other words, only mean that John is currently on a
trip to Boston (and not that he has the experience of going to Boston).
Adverbs of iteration and frequency are therefore excluded, as in (5:8b)
(see Jónsson 1992, Thráinsson 2007:12). Cf. also Swedish in (5:9) and
Norwegian in (5:10).
(5:8)
105
a.
Jón
er farinn til Boston.
John is gone
to Boston
‘John has gone to Boston.’
There are a few exceptions to the restriction on BE with active participles in
English; consider (i).
(i) He is gone.
146
b. * Jón er þrisvar
farinn
John is three.times gone
til Boston
to Boston
(5:9)
Han är hitrest
från Stockholm (*och har redan åkt
he is here.travelled from Stockholm and has already gone
igen).
again
‘He has come here from Stockholm (*but has already gone again).’
(5:10)
Han er reist
till Kina (*og han kom tilbake forrige uke).
he is travelled to China and he came back
last week
‘He has gone to China (*and he came back last week).’
Icelandic has eventive passives with BE, much like English (see e.g.
Benediktsson 1980, Barðdal & Mólnar 2000, Svenonius 2006). Consider
the contrasts between the passive with the participle fryst ‘frozen’ (from
trans. frysta ‘freeze’) and the active construction with BE + the active
participle frosið ‘frozen’ (from unacc. frjósa ‘freeze’) in (5:11) and
(5:12) below; the former but not the latter allows manner adverbs like
hratt ‘quickly’ and frequency adverbs like oft ‘often’.
(5:11)
a.
b.
(5:12)
a.
b.
Brauðið
var fryst
hratt.
the.bread was frozen quickly
‘The bread was frozen quickly.’
Brauðið
var frosið (*hratt).
the.bread was frozen quickly
‘The bread has frozen (*quickly).’
Brauðið
var oft fryst.
the.bread was often frozen
‘The bread has been frozen often.’
Brauðið
var (*oft) frosið.
the.bread was often
frozen
‘The bread has frozen (*often).’
In Swedish and Norwegian, on the other hand, also passives with BE are
stative, and an experiential reading is generally disallowed; cf. the
Swedish BE-passives in (5:13) with the passive perfects in (5:14).
(5:13)
a.
b.
Lådan är fylld (*men redan tömd
igen).
the.box is filled but
already emptied again
‘The box has been filled (*but has already been emptied again).’
Staden var förstörd
(*flera gånger).
the.city was destroyed several times
‘The city had been destroyed (*several times).’
147
(5:14)
a.
b.
Lådan har fyllts
men redan tömts
igen.
the.box has filled.PASS but already emptied.PASS again
‘The box has been filled but has already been emptied again.’
Staden har förstörts
flera
gånger.
the.city has destroyed.PASS several times
‘The city has been destroyed several times.’
In the next section, I give a brief overview of what distinguishes stative
from eventive passives and perfects.
5.1.2. Stative passives
There are several diagnostics which show that BE-passives are stative in
Swedish, and which distinguish them from BECOME-passives and
morphological passives. First, only eventive passives can occur in whclefts like those in (5:15).106
(5:15)
a. * Vad som hände
var att älgen
what that happened was that the.elk
b. Vad som hände
var att älgen
what that happened was that the.elk
‘What happened was that the elk was shot.’
var skjuten.
was shot
blev
skjuten.
became shot
Perfects are restricted in wh-clefts, as well; this has sometimes been
taken as evidence for the stativity of the perfect (see e.g. Katz 2003,
Rothstein 2008). However, with perfects, the grammaticality appears to
depend on the tense of the relative clause; see (5:16) where present and
past perfects are grammatical in wh-clefts as long as the relative clause
also includes a present or past perfect.
(5:16)
a. * Vad som hände
var att älgen har/hade skjutits.
what that happened was that the.elk has/had
shot.PASS
b. Vad som har hänt
är att älgen har skjutits.
what that has happened is that the.elk has shot.PASS
‘What has happened is that the elk has been shot.’
c. Vad som hade hänt
var att älgen hade skjutits.
what that had happened was that the.elk had shot.PASS
‘What had happened was that the elk had been shot.’
106
The verb hända ‘happen’ expresses a punctual event and is therefore obligatorily bounded (see chapter 6 below); BE-passives are ungrammatical also with an
atelic matrix verb like pågå ‘go on’:
(i)
* Vad som pågick var att älgar var skjutna.
what that went.on was that elks were shot
148
Stative passives, on the other hand, are ungrammatical in wh-clefts independently of tense; the examples in (5:17) are equally ungrammatical.
(5:17)
a. * Vad
what
b. * Vad
what
c. * Vad
what
som
that
som
that
som
that
hände
var att älgen var skjuten.
happened was that the.elk was shot
har/hade hänt
är/var att älgen är/var
has/had happened is/was that the.elk is/was
hade hänt
var att älgen hade varit
had happened was that the.elk had been
skjuten.
shot
skjuten.
shot
Eventive passives are grammatical in the imperfective construction with
hålla på att ‘keep at, be doing’; since BECOME is a punctual verb the
construction with hålla på att does not have an ongoing reading, but
expresses that the event is about to happen (i.e., it has a prospective
reading; see chapter 6 below). Stative passives are ungrammatical with
hålla på att on any reading; cf. the stative passive in (5:18a) and the
eventive passive in (5:18b). In this respect, stative passives pattern with
perfects; cf. (5:19).
(5:18)
a. * Älgen höll på att vara skjuten.
the.elk kept at
to
be shot
b. Älgen höll på att bli
skjuten.
the.elk kept at
to
become shot
‘The elk was about to be shot.’
(5:19)
a. * Älgen höll på att ha skjutits.
the.elk kept at
to
have shot.PASS
b. * Älgen har hållit på att ha skjutits.
the.elk has kept at
to
have shot.PASS
Finally, manner adverbs like snabbt ‘quickly’ or långsamt ‘slowly’ are
ungrammatical in stative passives, but not in eventive passives; cf. the
stative passive in (5:20a) and the eventive passive in (5:20b).107 There is
107
I disregard the generic middle reading of participles in the complement of BE.
Participial middles differ in important respects from the participles investigated here
(see Klingvall 2008). They require an (incorporated) manner adverbial, but disallow
agentive by-phrases; cf. (i) and (ii).
(i) a.
b.
Kakan är snabbäten (*av Lisa)
the.cake is quick.eaten by Lisa
‘The cake eats quickly (*by Lisa).’
Kakan är *(snabb)äten.
the.cake is quick.eaten
149
no restriction on manner adverbs in perfects; see (5:21). As we will see
below, not all kinds of manner or instrument adverbials are equally
restricted in stative passives; I suggest that adverbs like snabbt and
långsamt differ from e.g. instrument adverbials by not being licensed
(only) by some head in the verb phrase (e.g. proc), but by requiring
(also) an eventive VoiceP (see chapter 8 below).
(5:20)
a.
b.
(5:21)
Tunnan
var (*långsamt) fylld med vatten.
the.barrel
was slowly
filled with water
‘The barrel had been (*slowly) filled with water.’
Tunnan
blev
långsamt fylld
med vatten.
the.barrel became slowly
filled with water
‘The barrel was slowly filled with water.’
Regnet hade långsamt fyllt tunnan
med vatten.
the.rain had slowly
filled the.barrel with water
‘The rain had slowly filled the barrel with water.’
Passives with BE in German differ from perfects with HAVE or BE in
similar respects. Manner adverbials are, for example, possible in eventive passives and perfects, but not in stative passives; cf. (5:22a) and
(5:22b–c).108 As we will see below, experiential readings are restricted
or unavailable in German stative passives, but not in perfects. The construction with BE + passive participle should therefore not be analysed
as a passive perfect in German.
(5:22)
a.
b.
(ii) a.
b.
Die Tonne ist
(*schnell) gefüllt.
the barrel is
quickly
filled
‘The barrel has been (*quickly) filled.’
Die Tonne wird
schnell gefüllt.
the barrel becomes quickly filled
‘The barrel is quickly being filled.’
This bread cuts easily (*by John)
This bread cuts *(easily).
Moreover, some adverbials like snabbt ‘quickly’ (but not långsamt ‘slowly’) can
have a reading corresponding to ‘shortly’ rather than ‘in a quick way’ both in stative passives and with passive vers like gilla ‘like’; this reading is also disregarded.
108 Also in German, a manner adverbial is possible with BE on a generic reading
(Julia Prentice p.c.); cf. (i).
(i)
So
eine Tonne ist schnell gefüllt.
such a
barrel is
quickly filled
‘Such a barrel fills quickly.’
150
c.
Ich habe sie schnell gefüllt.
I
have it
quickly filled
‘I have filled it quickly.’
Also English has stative passives, although they are not morphologically
distinct from eventive passives. With an agentive by-phrase, a passive
like (5:23a) only has an eventive reading, and the simple present is
therefore degraded (in the absence of progressive morphology); without
the by-phrase, a stative reading is available, and the simple present is
possible; cf. (5:23b).
(5:23)
a.
b.
??
Look! The milk is spilled by Gepetto!
Look! The paint is spilled!
(from Harley 1998:ex. (32))
Moreover, in the absence of a by-phrase, a positional past time adverbial
is ambiguous in passives in English; cf. (5:24a) which is compatible
with a reading where the writing takes place before two o’clock, as well
as with a reading where it takes place at two o’clock. With a by-phrase
only the latter reading remains; cf. (5:24b).
(5:24)
a.
b.
The letter will be written at two o’clock.
The letter will be written by John at two o’clock.
As noted, BE-passives are always stative in languages like Swedish and
German. However, this does not mean that they necessarily lack event
implications or verbal structure; as we have already seen, participles in
the complement of BE can be grammatical with adverbs like nyligen
‘recently’. In Swedish, BECOME-passives and BE-passives differ in
their aspectual properties, but not necessarily in the composition of the
verb phrase. The structure of stative participles is discussed at some
length in chapter 8 below. Now, I turn to the properties of the construction with BE + active participle and to the alternation between HAVE
and BE in older Swedish.
5.2. Material
The present investigation builds on the study of HAVE and BE by
Johannisson (1945), and the material has been chosen with consideration to his results. Johannisson argues that an extensive corpus is required in order to uncover the principles behind the alternation between
HAVE and BE in the Scandinavian data (1945:6). In addition to con-
151
siderable Old Norse material, he investigates a large part of the Old
Swedish records as well as a substantial number of Early Modern and
Late Modern Swedish texts, covering different genres (laws, religious
texts, chronicles, plays, letters etc.) and different geographical areas. All
in all the material includes 8382 examples with HAVE or BE + participles of unaccusative verbs in Swedish texts from the 13th to the 18th
century, and 2352 Old Norse examples. In this way, Johannisson’s study
provides an important overview of the material and indicates where
variation is to be found; he also explicitly points out grammatical factors
that are involved in the variation.
In the present study, the emphasis is on a qualitative analysis of the
constructions with HAVE or BE + unaccusative verbs. For quantitative
data, I rely on Johannisson’s study, but in order to get an overview of
the alternation, I have made a detailed investigation of a smaller older
Swedish material. Since the focus is on (changes in) the individual
grammars of speakers at earlier times, and since differences between
speakers can correlate with time and geography (among other things), I
have tried to establish the date and place of birth for the authors of the
texts in the material. The date in connection with examples refers to the
year of birth, unless there are several authors involved or the author (or
date of birth) is unknown, in which case the (approximate) date of the
production or publication is given (disregarding the age of the manuscript). The material is listed in Table 5.1 below, where also text type
and the number of (investigated) pages are given.109 When more than
one text by the same author is included in the material, the texts are distinguished by the Roman numeral that follows the name of the author
(see also the Bibliography).
109
Text types are given simply in order to give some idea of the style of the texts,
and they are not to be understood in a more precise genre theoretic sense. The
biographical information comes from Nationalencyclopedin and Svenskt biografiskt
lexikon. I date Herr Ivan to c. 1303, following standard practice; the manuscript is
from the 15th century. Prosaiska krönikan is sometimes called Sveriges krönika; it is
generally assumed to date to the period 1450–1457. It is preserved in a number of
manuscripts dating from the middle of the 15th century to 1619. The oldest manuscript is the main codex (see Klemming’s edition p. 293). The letters by Arvid
Siggesson are preserved in original. Some of them can be assumed to be by his own
hand, while others are written by a scribe in Siggesson’s name. The edition of the
text by Peder Swart is based on the original or a copy thereof (see the introduction to
Edén’s edition, p. iii); at least parts of it are written by a scribe. The text by Olaus
Petri was most likely written in the period between 1530 and 1550 and the edition is
based on a manuscript from around the same period, written by two different hands
(see the introduction by the editor). The first 125 pages of the text have been
investigated, and only the parts written by Hand A are included.
152
TABLE 5.1.
Author
Investigated texts for the older stage (c. 1300–1560).
Date
–
1297
–
–
c. 1303
1405–
1420
c. 1450
–
Ericus
Nicolai I
Ericus
Nicolai II
Arvid
Siggesson
1495
1514
†1520
Olaus Petri
*1493
Peder
Swart
†1562
Place of
birth
Uppland
–
Uppland
–
Title
Upplandslagen,
UL
Herr Ivan
Diplom
Law
Nr of
pages
276
Verse
Charters
300
c. 16
Prosaiska
krönikan
Om djävulens
frestelse
Ars moriendi
Chronicle
29
Religious
c. 49
Religious
c. 33
Letters
c. 70
Bälinge,
Uppland
Bälinge,
Uppland
(unknown) Arvid
Siggessons
brevväxling
(1488–1517)
Örebro,
En swensk
Närke
cröneka
(unknown) Konung Gustaf
I:s krönika
(1560)
Text type
Chronicle
125
Chronicle
157
The material includes some of the texts from Johannisson’s study which
have more than a handful of examples of perfect-type constructions with
BE. In addition, it contains a couple of texts that are not investigated by
Johannisson, but which can be argued to reflect the language in Central
Sweden at the time. These include a number of charters which according
to Beckman (1917:115) reflect the language in or around Uppsala (located just north of Stockholm), two printed texts, Om djävulens frestelse
[About the devil’s temptation] and Ars moriendi, and the letters by
Arvid Siggesson. Even though Om djävulens frestelse and Ars moriendi
are translations, they exhibit several linguistic features particular to
Central Sweden (see Henning 1927, Larsson 2004). The number of
relevant examples in the individual texts is small; the charters and the
prints only have a handful of examples of perfect-type constructions
with unaccusative verbs.
Neither the Old Swedish material nor the 16th century records offer
much choice with regard to text types and style; the preserved 16th
century texts display a higher degree of uniformity than both the Old
Swedish and the 17th century material. The two religious prints by
Ericus Nicolai have traits in common with the translation of the New
153
Testament from 1526 (see Henning 1927). Olaus Petri and his brother
Laurentius Petri were responsible for the translation of the New Testament, as well as the entire Bible from 1541; their production dominates
the 16th century records. The translation of the Bible arguably has had a
great deal of influence on the development of Modern Standard Swedish, but is hardly representative of spontaneous speech at the middle of
the 16th century.
I have collected all examples of active participles of unaccusative
verbs in the complement of BE or HAVE in the material.110 One text
(UL) is electronic; from this, only cases with an explicit auxiliary have
been collected. In the discussion, I use the examples provided by
Johannisson and from my own material, including the material in
chapter 4 and the Early Modern texts presented in chapter 7 below.
There is an extensive literature on the alternation between HAVE and
BE, and it is well known that there is variation between speakers, and
that some degree of idiosyncrasy can be involved. I do not attempt to
account for all single instances of BE with active participles in the
historical data, but I rather look for relevant generalizations. In the
following, I focus on the examples that are unexpected from the perspective of the present-day Scandinavian languages, particularly cases
with a counterfactual or experiential reading.
5.3. Overview of the HAVE/BE alternation in older Swedish
Unaccusative verbs only rarely occur in the complement of HAVE in
Old Swedish; in the texts that were investigated in chapter 4, there were
only 5 examples all in all (see Table 4.5 above). Telic change of location
verbs like komma ‘come’ and change of state verbs like bli ‘become’
and växa ‘grow’ generally form perfect-type constructions with BE and
not with HAVE; see (5:25) below.
110
In older Germanic, not only HAVE and BE take active participial complements;
also BECOME sometimes does. In the texts investigated here and in chapter 7, there
are a couple of examples; see (i). The cases are rare, and they are not included in the
present study.
(i)
dåck
bleff
inte mehr ähn en gård upbrunnin
however became not more than one farm up.burned
‘However, no more than one farm burned down.’
(Rosenhane *1611:89)
154
(5:25)
a.
b.
c.
Han […] spordhe hwi iak var komin hære
he
asked why I
was come here
‘He asked why I had come here’
(Ivan c. 1303:462)
Herra Iwan ær ater
vordhin stark
Sir
Ivan is
again become strong
‘Sir Ivan has become strong again.’
(Ivan c.1303:2509)
är en qist vuxin ur
thet ena trädh
is a
twig grown out.of the one the.tree
‘has a twig grown out of the first tree’
(Bureus I *1568:200)
Stative verbs like vara ‘be’ and unergatives like arbeta ‘work’ and sova
‘sleep’, on the other hand, form perfects with HAVE, as in (5:26), and
they do occur in the complement of BE.
(5:26)
a.
b.
c.
d.
at
iak swa længe hafuer varith medh tik
that I
so long
have
been
with
you
‘that I have been with you for so long’
(Ivan c. 1303:1062)
þa hafþe liuat. xc ar
when had
lived 90 years
‘when [she] had lived for 90 years’
(Leg c. 1300:4)
Och efter iagh desse dagar hafver arbetat på mitt Sigillo
and since I
these days have
worked on my seal
‘and since I these days have worked on my seal’
(Bureus II *1568:98)
En måron
hade han såfwit långt in på dagen
one morning had he slept
far in on
the.day
‘One morning, he had slept well into the day.’
(Columbus I *1642:30)
As in e.g. German, Dutch and Danish, variable behaviour verbs can, as a
rule, occur in the complement of BE when they have a telic reading, but
not when they are atelic; cf. the verb rida ‘ride’ in a telic context in
(5:27a) and in an atelic context in (5:27b).
(5:27)
a.
b.
the ther […] wore redne aff Kalmare
they there
were ridden from Kalmar
‘those who had ridden from Kalmar’
(Swart 1560:41)
Tha iak hafdhe ridhit een litin stund
when I
hade
ridden a
little while
‘When I had ridden for a little while’
(Ivan c. 1303:251)
155
The group of variable behaviour verbs includes most of the intransitive
verbs of motion that are telic or atelic depending on context. A telic
reading can be achieved either with a prepositional phrase, as in (5:27a),
or with a particle, as in (5:28).
(5:28)
äffter all snön
war bårtgången
since all the.snow was away.gone
‘since all the snow had disappeared’
(Rosenhane *1611:163)
A couple of the investigated verbs occasionally occur with a reflexive,
but never in the complement of BE; cf. the verb hända ‘happen’ in
(5:29a) (where HAVE is omitted) to (5:29b).111 Unlike reflexives in the
Romance languages, reflexive verbs do not have active participles in the
complement of BE in Germanic (see chapter 7, section 7.6).
(5:29)
a.
b.
at
det sedermera händt
sig, at min Doter
samtyckt
that it later.on
happened REFL that my daughter consented
‘that it since then [has] happened, that my Daughter [has] consented’
(Gyllenborg *1679:109)
Iag önskar tusenfalt
dät aldrig wore händt!
I
wish
thousand.times it
never were happened
‘I wish a thousand times that it had never happened.’
(Philomela 1688:175)
The general picture, then, suggests that Old Swedish had a split auxiliary system just like Present-Day Danish. However, while unaccusatives
are ungrammatical in perfects with HAVE in Danish (cf. above section
2.1), they are, as noted, not completely excluded with HAVE in Old
Swedish; see the examples in (5:30) ((5:30b) = (4:50b) above).
(5:30)
a.
b.
111
hafþe þin kona hær comit. aldre skulde hon hæþan
had
your wife here come never would she away
coma: liuande:
come living
‘if your wife had come here, she would never get away alive’
(Leg c. 1300:19)
The […] sagdo at
the haffdo tith komit alt affbrat
they
said
that they had
there come all too.soon
‘They said that they had come there to soon’
(Erikskrönikan 14th c.:1632f.)
Examples where the (finite or non-finite) auxiliary are omitted are treated as
HAVE-perfects; see chapter 7 below.
156
The alternation between HAVE and BE cannot be fully explained with
reference to the structure of the verb phrase; cf. the examples in (5:31),
which both involve the verb tillgå ‘happen’ (lit. ‘go to’). Instead, there is
variation throughout the Old Swedish and Early Modern Swedish periods, within individual texts and with individual verbs.
(5:31)
a.
b.
TABLE 5.2.
Så seer man här tilgått
wara
so sees one here about.gone be
‘one sees that things have happened in this way here’
(Petri *1493:48)
Kan man wel merkia huru thå haffuer tilgått
can one well notice how then has
about.gone
‘One can well notice how things then has happened’
(Petri *1493:31)
The frequency of HAVE with unaccusatives in some Old
and Early Modern Swedish texts (from Johannisson
1945:135–136, Table 2–5).112
Text
Östgötalagen (ÖgL, c. 1290)
Upplandslagen (UL, 1297)
Ett fornsvenskt legendarium (Leg; c. 1300)
Herr Ivan (c. 1303)
Pentateuchparafrasen (c. 1330)
Erikskrönikan (c. 1330)
Jöns Budde, Buddes bok (*c. 1437)
Olaus Petri, En swensk cröneka (*1495)
Laurentius Petri, Kyrkoordningen (*1499)
Peder Swart, Konung Gustaf I:s krönika
(†1562)
# HAVE
0/33
3/47
2/32
11/91
28/167
13/44
32/73
86/283
9/91
16/104
% HAVE
0%
6%
6%
12 %
17 %
30 %
44 %
30 %
10 %
15 %
In Table 5.2, I give the frequencies of HAVE with unaccusatives for
some of the texts in Johannisson’s (1945) study. While HAVE is rare or
completely missing in some of the texts (ÖgL, UL and Leg), other texts
have as much as 44 % HAVE with unaccusatives; the book by Jöns
Budde is included in the table since it is the Old Swedish text in
Johannisson’s corpus which has the highest frequency of HAVE. In
112
The figures I gave in Table 4.5 above differ marginally from Johannisson’s;
Johannisson has a slightly higher number of cases of HAVE in Old Swedish (three
examples in UL, where I have counted only two). Most likely, this is because he
includes also cases where the non-finite auxiliary is omitted in the numbers for
HAVE.
157
Johannisson’s study, all in all 17 % of the Old Swedish examples and
18 % of the examples from the time 1526–1600 contain HAVE (1945:
136, Table 4 & 5).
In the following sections, I consider contexts where HAVE is much
preferred also with participles of unaccusative verbs throughout the Old
Swedish and Early Modern Swedish periods. The most striking context
involves counterfactuals.
5.4. Counterfactuals and tense
In the Swedish texts before the 17th century, a majority of the examples
of unaccusatives embedded under HAVE are used in counterfactuals, as
in the example in (5:32) below.
(5:32)
Hade ock iagh, tå
dödt medh them, / Tå hade
had also I
then died with
them
then had
ey skeedt,
thet wij nu seem
not happened that we now see
‘If also I had died with them then, it would not have happened, what
we now see’
(Petri Tobie *1493:404; from Johannisson 1945:117)
In Johannisson’s Old Swedish material, 185 (52 %) of the total 355 examples of HAVE with participles of unaccusative verbs involve counterfactuals (1945:97). Compare the counterfactual with HAVE in (5:33a)
and the similar, but factual, example with BE in (5:33b).
(5:33)
a.
b.
Jach hade gerne och faaret medh tyl ider
I
had gladly also gone
with
to you
‘I had gladly also gone with them to you’
(Siggesson a. 1500:15)
j
samme dage fych iach Knwtz j Gylle scriffuilse.
in
same day got I
Knut’s in Gylle letter
athy [= at I] ware faren aff Westeraars til Stocholm.
that.you
were gone from Västerås
to Stockholm
‘The same day, I got the letter from Knut in Gylle that you were gone
from Västerås to Stockholm.’
(Siggesson a. 1500:15)
The by far most common context for a counterfactual is the conditional.
Johannisson notes around 300 examples of HAVE in conditionals in the
material up until around year 1700. Only in nine cases is the auxiliary
BE (1945:117); I return to these below. The variation in the frequency
158
of HAVE in Swedish texts before the 17th century is partly explained by
the fact that past counterfactuals with perfect morphology are rare or
completely missing in some texts (the laws), while common in other
texts (e.g. the texts by Olaus Petri).
The relevant difference between the constructions with HAVE and
BE can be related to tense morphology. In languages like English and
Swedish, counterfactuals with pluperfect morphology have a past tense
reading, whereas preterite morphology yields a present tense counterfactual; see (5:34) and the corresponding Swedish examples in (5:35)
(and cf. Ekerot 1995:157 and SAG 1999, 4:268ff.).
(5:34)
a.
b.
I wish I had a car at present.
I wish I had had a car back then.
(Iatridou 2000:239)
(5:35)
a.
Jag önskar att jag hade en
I
wish
that I had a
‘I wish I had a car now.’
Jag önskar att jag hade haft
I
wish
that I
had had
‘I wish I had had a car back then.’
b.
bil
car
nu.
now
en bil på den tiden.
a car at that time
Sentences which are normally disallowed in the pluperfect are perfectly
grammatical in pluperfect counterfactuals where they have a past tense
and not a past perfect tense reading; see (5:36).
(5:36)
a. * Napoleon had been tall.
b. Napoleon was tall.
c. If Napoleon had been tall, he would have defeated Wellington.
(Iatridou 2000:245)
Iatridou (2000) refers to the past morphology in counterfactuals as fake
past since it does not receive a temporal past interpretation. She proposes that the morphology still makes a real contribution to the counterfactual, namely the counterfactual semantics itself. The suggestion is
that past morphology does not directly encode past tense semantics in
languages such as Greek and English (and Swedish), but rather spells
out a more abstract feature which can be utilised to express counterfactuality. This feature, which Iatridou calls Exclusion feature, has the
basic meaning given in (5:37), where x can range over either times or
worlds; when it ranges over times we get a past tense, when it ranges
over worlds we have a counterfactual (i.e., the worlds we are talking
about excludes the actual world).
159
(5:37)
T(x) excludes C(x).
T(x) stands for ‘Topic (x)’ (i.e., ‘the x that we are talking about’). C(x)
stands for ‘the x that for all we know is the x of the speaker’
(Iatridou 2000:246).
A counterfactual, then, has the semantics of (5:38). Past tense, on the
other hand, has the semantics given in (5:39), where the topic time corresponds to the assertion time interval set up by aspect (AST).113
(5:38)
Counterfactual: The topic worlds exclude the actual world.
(from Iatridou 2000:247)
(5:39)
Past tense: The topic time excludes the utterance time.
(from Iatridou 2000:246)
Consider the difference between the preterite and the pluperfect form in
the examples in (5:34)–(5:36) again. A pluperfect presumably has two
layers of past morphology, i.e. carries two Exclusion features; it is the
combination of a finite past with a non-finite past (see chapter 3 above).
In a counterfactual, one Exclusion feature ranges over worlds, but the
other expresses a past tense. A preterite form, on the other hand, only
has one Exclusion feature, and therefore gets a present reading in a
counterfactual. Note that this analysis requires an account where the
perfect contributes anteriority by assertion.
Now, consider constructions with BE. In Present-Day Swedish, both
passive and active constructions with BE + participle have a present
tense reading in counterfactuals; cf. (5:40) and (5:41).114
113
As Iatridou suggests, we could substitute ‘precedence’ for noninclusion: “The
‘before’ part of this skeletal frame when the latter is applied to the domain of worlds
could then be said to be inapplicable or vacuously satisfied” (2000:246 fn. 19).
114 Passives like those in (i) are possible in counterfactuals, but despite the temporal
adverbial, they do not have a past tense reading.
(i)
Jag önskar att jag vore född på 80-talet.
I
wish
that I
were born in the.80s
‘I wish I were born in the 80s’
Here, the results of the event of being born hold at the present, but the event did not
take place at the time of the adverbial; cf. the ungrammatical examples in (ii).
(ii)
* Om
if
jag
I
vore född när det
were born when it
hände
hade jag
happened had I
varit där.
been there
160
(5:40)
a.
Jag önskar att tröjan
redan vore tvättad.
I
wish
that the.sweater already were washed
‘I wish that the sweater were washed already.’
b. * Jag önskar att tröjan
vore tvättad till festen igår.
I
wish
that the.sweater were washed to the.party yesterday
(5:41)
a.
Jag önskar att han redan vore hemkommen.
I
wish
that he already were home.come
‘I wish that he were here already.’
b. * Jag önskar att han vore hemkommen till mötet
igår.
I
wish that he were home.come to the.meeting yesterday
To get a past counterfactual reading, BE must be in the pluperfect, as in
the examples in (5:42).
(5:42)
a.
b.
Jag önskar att tröjan
hade varit tvättad till
I
wish
that the.sweater had been washed to
festen
igår.
the.party yesterday
‘I wish that the sweater had been washed for the party yesterday.’
Jag önskar att han hade varit hemkommen till
I
wish
that he had been home.come to
mötet
igår.
the.meeting yesterday
‘I wish that he had come home to the meeting yesterday.’
The active and passive constructions with BE are incompatible with a
past counterfactual reading also in Icelandic and Norwegian; cf. Icelandic in (5:43) and Norwegian in (5:44).115
(5:43)
a. * Ef hann væri kominn í gær,
þá...
if
he were come yesterday then
‘If he had come yesterday, then…’
b. Ef hann væri kominn núna, þá...
if
he were come now
then
‘If he were here now, then...’
(5:44)
a.
115
Sven
har/er dratt till Stuttgart.
Sven
has/is gone to
Stuttgart
‘Sven has gone to Stuttgart.’
In Icelandic, subjunctive morphology is obligatory in counterfactuals. As pointed out by Iatridou (2000), this does not affect the possibility of past counterfactuals;
Icelandic patterns with Swedish and English (where the use of the subjunctive is
very limited).
161
b. * Hvis Sven var dratt till Stuttgart, kunne
if
Sven was gone to Stuttgart could
Mercedes museumet.
Mercedes the.Museum
(McFadden & Alexiadou 2007:29f.)
han ha sett
he have seen
Again, a past counterfactual reading is available in a pluperfect with
HAVE; see the Norwegian example in (5:45).
(5:45)
Hvis Sven hade dratt till Stuttgart, kunne han ha sett
if
Sven was gone to Stuttgart could he have seen
Mercedes museumet.
Mercedes Museum
‘If Sven had gone to Stuttgart he could have seen the Mercedes
Museum.’
(McFadden & Alexiadou 2007:29f.)
In German and Danish, pluperfects with BE behave just like pluperfects
with HAVE; cf. the Danish BE-perfect in (5:46) and the German perfects in (5:47) which are grammatical with a past counterfactual reading.
(5:46)
(5:47)
Jeg kunne godt have
ønsket mig at
han var
I
could well have wished REFL that he was
kommet til mødet
i går.
come to the.meeting yesterday
‘I could well have wished that he had come to the meeting yesterday.’
a.
b.
Wenn er
gearbeitet hätte….
if
he worked
had
‘If he had worked...’
Wenn er
ankommen wäre…
if
he arrived
were
‘If he had arrived…’
(McFadden & Alexiadou 2006a:274)
Stative passives with past tense BE, on the other hand, have a present
tense reading in counterfactuals in Danish and German, just like in
Swedish; see the Danish passives in (5:48) and the German passives in
(5:49).
(5:48)
a.
Jeg havde håbet på at trøjen
allerede var vasket.
I
had hoped on that the.sweater already was washed
‘I had hoped that the sweater would already be washed.’
b. * Hvis trøjen
var vasket til festen
igår,
ville
if
the.sweater was washed to the.party yesterday would
jeg have brugt den da.
I
have used it
then
162
(5:49)
a.
Ich wünschte der Pullover wäre schon
I
wished
the sweater
were already
‘I wished that the sweater were already washed.’
b. * Ich wünschte der Pullover wäre bis zur
I
wished
the sweater
were for.the
gewaschen.
washed
gewaschen.
washed
Party
Party
gestern
yesterday
As in Swedish, Icelandic and Norwegian, a past counterfactual becomes
possible when BE is embedded under the temporal auxiliary; see the
Danish example in (5:50) and the German example in (5:51).
(5:50)
Jeg havde håbet på at
trøjen
havde været
I
had
hoped on that the.sweater had
been
vasket til festen
i går.
washed to the.party yesterady
‘I had hoped that the sweater had been washed for the party
yesterday.’
(5:51)
Ich wünschte der Pullover wäre bis zur Party gestern
I
wished
the sweater
were for.the Party yesterday
gewaschen gewesen.
washed
been
‘I wished that the sweater had been washed for the party yesterday.’
As noted, counterfactuals with BE are rare in the historical records. In
the texts investigated here, there is no example with BE + active participle and a counterfactual reading.116 In Johannisson’s extensive material, there are nine. As in Present-Day Swedish, these appear to have a
present tense rather than a past tense reading; consider the examples in
(5:52) below. The example in (5:52a) has the adverbial nu ‘now’; in
(5:52b) the antecedent (the condition) has a preterite form of the copula
BE, whereas in (5:52c) the consequent is in the preterite, and includes
116
In the 17th century texts discussed in chapter 7 below, there is one example:
(i) Iag önskar tusenfalt
dät aldrig wore händt!
I
wish
thousand.times it
never were happened
I wish a thousand times that it never had happened!
(Philomela 1688:175)
This example is quite exceptional, particularly since it is from the end of the 17th
century, and from a text where the use of BE is otherwise restricted. I have no
explanation for it.
163
an adverbial meaning ‘already’.117 Compare the modern example in
(5:53) below; it is perfectly grammatical, but has a present tense reading.
(5:52)
a.
b.
c.
(5:53)
hafdhe ey thenne dwale warith, tha waarom wi nw
had
not this
delay been
then were
we now
annan tima ater
kompne
second time again come
‘had it not been for this delay, we would now be back for the second
time’
(Pentateuchparafrasen c. 1330:244; from Johannisson 1945:117f.)
Oc ware ey thz, tha ware nu werldin alredho forgangin
and were not that then were now the.world already passed
‘and was it not for that, the world would already be gone’
(Själens tröst 15th c.:235; from Johannisson 1945:118)
Wore någhor orett
skeedd […] wore wel
tilbörlighit
were
some
unjustice occurred were surely appropriate
at iagh hörde idher
that I
heard you
‘had some unjustice occurred, it would surely be appropriate that I
listened to you’
(GVB 1541, Acts 18:14; from Johannisson 1945:118)
Om jag hade en cykel, vore jag redan där.
if
I
had a
bike
were I
already there
‘If I had a bike, I would already be there.’
In light of the otherwise considerable variation with regard to auxiliary
selection (and many other things) in older Swedish, the lack of variation
in past counterfactuals seems highly significant. We can assume that
HAVE is, in fact, the only possibility in past counterfactuals also in older Swedish, and that past tense of BE + participle had a present tense
reading in a counterfactual. Following McFadden & Alexiadou (2005,
2006a, 2006b, 2007), I assume that this is because the construction with
BE was not a perfect.
Up until the end of the 19th century, English had an alternation between HAVE and BE much like older Swedish; see the examples in
(5:54).
(5:54)
117
a.
Our invitations for the 19th are arrived
(Austen *1775:88; from Rydén & Brorström 1987:44)
Three of the nine examples with BE come from the same text (the letters by
Magnus Stenbock *c. 1663) and are, according to Johannisson (1945:117), due to
German influence.
164
b.
and so I am got home, and Lord knows what is become of Patrick.
(Swift *1667:279; from Rydén & Brorström 1987:50)
There are, however, examples of unaccusatives in the complement of
HAVE already in Middle English. As in Swedish, BE appears to have
been unavailable in past counterfactuals; see the older English examples
in (5:55) which involve HAVE and a participle of the unaccusative verb
come.
(5:55)
a.
b.
And if þow hadest come betyme, he hade yhade þe maistre
and if you had
come timely he had had
the master
‘And if you had come in time, he would have prevailed.’
(Middle English, 1350–1420; from McFadden & Alexiadou
2006b:ex. (2a))
and if they had come sooner, they could haue holpen them.
(Early Modern English, 1500–1710; from McFadden & Alexiadou
2006b:ex. (4a))
In their investigation of the Penn-Helsinki Parsed Corpus of Middle
English and the Penn-Helsinki Parsed Corpus of Early Modern English,
McFadden & Alexiadou (2006a:271) find 903 examples of pluperfects
with HAVE in counterfactuals and only seven (0.8 %) with BE. As in
Swedish, the examples with BE all appear to have a present tense reading (2006a:274).
Based on Iatridou’s (2000) account of counterfactuals, McFadden &
Alexiadou argue that BE is unavailable in past counterfactuals because it
is not a temporal auxiliary, but simply a copula that takes a stative participle as its complement. Hence, though the interpretation of the constructions with HAVE and BE are very similar, one is a perfect, and the
other one is not. Recall also the distinction between perfect-like construction and perfect with HAVE in chapter 4 above; a preterite form of
possessive HAVE has a present tense reading in counterfactuals, just
like (passive or active) perfect-like constructions with BE; cf. (5:56).
For a past counterfactual reading, possessive HAVE has to be embedded
under a perfect, as in (5:57).
(5:56)
a.
Om hon hade väskorna packade nu, skulle vi
ha
if
she had the.bags packed now would we have
kunnat
åka.
been.able.to go
‘If she had the bags packed now, we would have been able to go.’
b. * Om hon hade väskorna packade igår,
hade vi
if
she had the.bags packed yesterday had we
kunnat
åka då.
been.able.to go then
165
(5:57)
Om hon hade haft väskorna packade igår,
hade vi
if
she had had the.bags packed yesterday had
we
kunnat
åka då.
been.able.to go then
‘If she had had the bags packed yesterday, we would have been able
to go then.’
In the perfect-like construction with BE (or HAVE), the anteriority of
the participial event is presumably not asserted by means of an Exclusion feature that ranges over time, but is only indirectly supplied by
the participle by implication of what it means to have a target state (cf.
McFadden & Alexiadou 2006b); when the target state of an event holds
at present, the process or transition necessarily lies in the past. Hence,
the past tense of a perfect-like construction with BE will get a present
tense reading in a counterfactual, just like other preterite forms.
An analysis of the constructions with BE as non-perfects explains the
differences between passive and perfect BE in German and Danish;
since perfects but not passives with BE have two layers of past morphology, only perfects are possible in past counterfactuals. This account
also straightforwardly extends to constructions with BE + active or passive participle in Present-Day Swedish, Icelandic and Norwegian where
constructions with BE never are perfects, and therefore never have a
past counterfactual reading. In the following, we will see further evidence for the analysis of BE + (active or passive) participle as a nonperfect construction in the present-day Scandinavian languages. I will
assume that the same is true for older Swedish; in this way, the absence
of BE in past counterfactuals can be explained.
McFadden & Alexiadou suggest that the temporal auxiliary HAVE
carries both of the Exclusion Features of the pluperfect, i.e. that the
auxiliary has double tense morphology, while the participle is tenseless;
since BE is not a temporal auxiliary in Middle English and older Swedish, it only has one Exclusion feature. However, past and perfect participles can be shown to have different properties also in other respects
(see chapter 2 above). As noted, they are morphologically distinct in
Swedish; cf. the past participle in (5:58a) and the supine in (5:58b).
(5:58)
a.
b.
Flyget
är redan ankommet.
the.flight is already arrive.PTC.N.SG
Flyget
har redan ankommit.
the.flight has already arrive.SUP
‘The flight has already arrived.’
166
I will therefore assume that neither BE nor HAVE can have more than
one Exclusion feature (one layer of tense morphology), and that the
difference between the constructions instead lies in the participle; this is
more in line with the analysis of the perfect that I proposed in chapter 3
above. Whereas HAVE takes a perfect participle (which has a non-finite
past value), BE takes a tenseless (and stative) complement; see the
structures in (5:59) and (5:60) where the presence/absence of a lower T
distinguishes perfects from perfect-like constructions (and perfect participles from past participles).118 Here, I take the participle in the complement of BE to have an aspectual phrase in its extended projection (cf.
Embick 2004a). The structure of past participles is discussed at more
length in chapters 6 and 8. I return to the internal structure of HAVE in
chapter 9.
(5:59)
Perfect:
CP
T 1P
C
Asp1P
T1
Voice1P
Asp1
Voice1
V1P
T2P
HAVE
Asp2P
T2
Voice2P
Asp2
Voice2
V 2P
118
Unlike the simple preterite, present perfect morphology is incompatible with a
counterfactual reading; cf. (i). This suggests that only finite past tense morphology
can yield a counterfactual reading.
(i)
* Om jag har tvättat tröjan
idag, skulle jag ha den på mig.
if
I have washed the.sweater today would I have it on me
167
(5:60)
Perfect-like construction:
CP
T 1P
C
Asp1P
T1
Voice1P
Asp1
V1P
Voice1
Asp2P
BE
Voice2P
Asp2
Voice 2
V2P
As noted, the perfect-like constructions with HAVE or BE are generally
restricted to the target state reading (resultative aspect), whereas true
perfects also can have an experiential reading or, in the case of an unbounded predicate, a universal reading. Hence, if BE is not a temporal
auxiliary in older Swedish, we do not expect to find it in experiential
and universal perfects. That is, we expect that the construction with BE
and participle is restricted to examples which express that the target
state of the participial event holds at the reference time (i.e. the matrix
assertion time). As we have already seen, this is generally the case for
the BE-passives and perfect-like constructions with HAVE in PresentDay Swedish.
There are, to my knowledge, no unaccusative verbs in universal perfects in the older Swedish material. Only few of the unaccusative verbs
are possible in universal perfects (which require unbounded predicates
and adverbial modification) with HAVE in Present-Day Swedish; consider the examples in (5:61) below.119
(5:61)
a.
b.
119
Han har vuxit i
flera
år
nu.
he has grown for several years now
‘He has been growing for several years now.’
Grytan har svalnat i
flera
timmar nu.
the.stew has cooled for several hours now
‘The stew has been cooling for several hours now.’
Punctual events like arrive require bounded aspect (see further chapter 6).
168
c. * Hon har ankommit i
she has arrived
for
flera
timmar nu.
several hours now
Examples of unaccusatives with a universal reading are therefore expected to be rare or non-existent in the limited historical records, regardless
of whether the construction with BE is a perfect or not; they are therefore disregarded in the following. Instead, I focus on BE in experiential
contexts, i.e. in contexts where the construction with BE + participle
does not assert that the target state of the participial event holds at the
time of the matrix clause.
5.5. BE in experiential perfects
The correlation between experiential perfects and past counterfactuals is
supported by facts from the present-day Scandinavian languages and
German. We saw above that constructions with BE + active participles
are possible in past counterfactuals in Danish and German, but not in
Swedish, Norwegian and Icelandic; this is expected since Danish and
German also allow experiential readings with BE. Passives with BE are,
on the other hand, ungrammatical in both past counterfactuals and experiential contexts; cf. the German examples in (5:62). The perfects with
HAVE and BE in (5:62a) and (5:62b) are both grammatical on the experiential reading; the passive in (5:62c), on the other hand, is not.
(5:62)
a.
Ich habe mein Handy
verloren und dann gleich
I
have my cellphone lost
and then immediately
wieder gefunden.
again found
‘I have lost my cellphone and then found it again right away.’
b. Mein Handy
ist verschwunden und dann gleich
my cellphone is
disappeared
and then immediately
wieder aufgetaucht.
again up.turned
‘My cellphone has disappeared and then shown up again right away.’
c. * Mein Handy
ist verloren, und ich habe es dann
my cellphone is
lost
and I
have it then
gleich
wieder gefunden.
immediately again found
Intended: ‘My cellphone has been lost, and then I’ve found it again
right away.’
(McFadden & Alexiadou 2006a:275)
169
As noted, Swedish and Norwegian constructions with BE behave the
same regardless of whether the participle is passive or active; they are
illicit in past counterfactuals, and they generally do not have an experiential reading (cf. section 5.1 above).120 In Icelandic, the construction
with BE + active participle is ungrammatical in both experiential perfects and past counterfactuals (cf. (5:12) and (5:43) above).
Also in the older Germanic languages, there appears to be a correlation between the ungrammaticality of BE in past counterfactuals and the
unavailability of the experiential reading, as expected if both require the
syntax and semantics of a perfect tense. Many of the factors that have
been proposed to account for the alternation between HAVE and BE in
previous studies of older English and older Scandinavian can, with some
modification, be reinterpreted as relating to the distinction between experiential and resultative readings, or rather, between perfects (which
allow experiential readings) and perfect-like constructions (which generally do not). In his detailed study of the Scandinavian languages, Johannisson (1945) distinguishes a number of factors which pick out mainly
the experiential as opposed to the stative perfect-like reading; these involve e.g. frequency adverbials, negation and temporal adverbials which
focus on the time of the transition rather than the time of the target state,
and they tend to favour HAVE and not BE. In a similar way, Kytö
(1997:31) argues that the “distinction between state/result (indicated by
be) and action (indicated by have) seems to have been one of the main
distributional factors” influencing the alternation in older English.
Among other things, she points to factors such as iteration, which promote the use of HAVE (1997:57; cf. also Fridén 1948:44f.); see the
examples in (5:63). Adverbs of frequency or iteration are generally restricted to experiential perfects, but as we will see below, they are not
always excluded in perfect-like constructions.
(5:63)
a.
b.
120
Fiue times he hath returnd / Bleeding to Rome
(Shakespeare Titus *1564:I.I.33; from Fridén 1948:45)
Full thirtie times hath Phebus cart gone round.
(Shakespeare Hamlet *1564:3.2.165; from Fridén 1948:45)
Since passives with BE behave like BE + active participle in Present-Day
Swedish in the sense relevant here, but are lexically less restricted, I sometimes use
passives to exemplify the properties of the perfect-like construction with BE. In
Icelandic, passive and active participles in the complement of BE behave differently;
as we have seen, the former but not the latter allow eventive readings. For Icelandic,
I therefore restrict the discussion to active participles.
170
In the following, I review some of the factors that have been suggested
to affect the alternation between HAVE and BE in older Scandinavian,
focusing on the distinction between the resultative and the experiential
reading. I first give an overview of the results from Johannisson’s study
and my own investigation. In section 5.5.3, I look closer at different
kinds of adverbial modification. As we will see below, BE is less restricted in older Swedish than we would expect considering the data reviewed so far; Johannisson therefore concludes that BE was a temporal
auxiliary in Old Swedish. I will argue that it was not, and instead suggest that the older Swedish data call for further distinctions among the
perfect-like constructions.
5.5.1. Experiential contexts and HAVE/BE in older Scandinavian
With regard to BE + active participle, Old Norse (i.e. Old Norwegian
and Old Icelandic) appears to be just like the modern languages; the
construction was clearly more restricted than a perfect (cf. Johannisson
1945:65). In other words, there is no clear evidence for a grammatical
change in the construction with BE + active participle in the history of
Icelandic. In Johannisson’s Old Norse material, there is only one example with BE and 25 examples with HAVE together with adverbs of
frequency or iteration (1945:36). Consider the examples in (5:64a) and
(5:64b); the former has HAVE and an experiential reading, the latter
involves BE and has a resultative reading. The example with BE and a
frequency adverbial is given in (5:65); the source is Norwegian.
(5:64)
a.
b.
(5:65)
þvíat hvern hefi ec heim
um komit
for every have I world PRT come
‘for I have come into every world’
(Edda Vm. 43)
En er
komit var til Ásólfs, þá [...]
and when come was to Ásólf then
‘when they had come to Ásolf, then…’
(Landnámabók 12th c.:62)
er iorð
komin þrysvár
undir snúð ok undir snælldu
is earth come three.times under twirl and under distaff
‘the earth has passed a spindle three times’ (i.e., ‘the earth has passed
three times through a woman’s hand’)
(Gulathings-Lov p. 92; from Johannisson 1945:36)
171
Within the different categories investigated by Johannisson, there are
altogether 15 Old Norse examples where BE is not straightforwardly
analysed as a copula, whereas more than 250 examples with HAVE
clearly have an eventive reading, according to Johannisson (1945:92).
The problematic cases with BE tend to come from older sources, and
eight are Norwegian (1945:92). Johannisson suggests that some of them
may be due to German influence and that at least one case should best
be seen as a mistake by the scribe (1945:45, 93). 121 One of the examples
that are problematic according to Johannisson is given in (5:66) below;
it involves the participle framkomin ‘emerged’, and the adverbial fyrst
‘first’ which presumably relates to the event of emerging.
(5:66)
Þat er oc, at
þeir scolo reifa
mal þeirra. þav fyrst
it
is also that they should sum.up case theirs that first
eru fram
comin
are forward come
‘Moreover, they should sum up their cases, which have emerged first’
(Grágás 41, p. 72; from Johannisson 1945:51)
However, while the example in (5:66) involves a verbal participle that
has event implications, it is not incompatible with a resultative reading.
Past participles in the complement of BE can obviously have an eventive component even if they do not have a T in their extended projection; as we will see in chapter 8, stative participles can have procP (and
initP) in their structure. With the slightly different distinctions made
here, the problematic examples therefore amount to 15 only if we count
generously.
According to Johannisson (1945), the same factors favour the use of
HAVE in Old Swedish as in Old Norse (and older English; cf. Fridén
1948). Also in older Swedish, unaccusative verbs form experiential perfects with HAVE, as in the examples in (5:67).
(5:67)
121
a.
Kom ock teslikes Nicodemus, som tilförenna hadhe kommet
came also alike
Nicodemus who before
had
come
til Jesum om nattena,
och baar
een bländning
to Jesus at
the.night and carried a
mixture
‘Nicodemus who before had come to Jesus at night also in the same
way came and carried a mixture’
(GVB 1541, John 19:39; from Johannisson 1945:106)
One example from the Snorra Edda (183:9) has BE + participle (var kominn
‘was come’) where another version of the text has a simple past form (kom ‘came’);
Johannisson suggests that the construction with BE is a contamination with a
following expression (eru komnir ‘are come’) (1945:45).
172
b.
ath han hafwer ganska offtha fallith j syndh
that he has
rather often
fallen in sin
ok faller än nw hwar
dagh.
and falls still
every day
‘he has rather often fallen into sin and still falls every day’
(Nicolai I 1495:[45])
In (5:67a), the target state of Nicodemus coming to Jesus does not hold,
and in (5:67b), the event of falling is repeated.
As noted in chapter 4 above, unaccusatives are, however, somewhat
more common in the complement of HAVE in the Old Norse texts than
in the Old Swedish texts. This is not just a difference in the frequency of
experiential perfects with unaccusatives; even if we consider experiential perfect-type constructions only, BE is more common in older Swedish than in both Old and Present-Day Icelandic. In iterative contexts,
Johannisson (1945:103 fn. 2) notes 56 examples with HAVE and 60
with BE in older Swedish (but see section 5.5.2.3 below). Two examples
with BE are given in (5:68); they involve adverbials meaning ‘often’
and ‘always’ (which yields an iterative reading with a punctual event),
and they therefore have an experiential and not a resultative reading.
(5:68)
a.
b.
c.
Thet är offta skeedt,
at […]
it
is often happened that
‘It has often happened that...’
(Petri *1493:3)
ther fore äro the offta
kompne på obestond
therefore are they often
come on insolvency
‘Therefore, they have often become insolvent.’
(Petri *1493:82)
Vbbo […] bygde Vbsal / Ther altidh är skedt
Ubbo
built Uppsala there always is happened
Kongars waal
kings’
election
‘Ubbo built Uppsala where the election of kings have always taken
place’
(Messenius I *1579:4)
Johannisson (1945:106f.) claims that BE is as common as HAVE in
perfect-type constructions in examples that do not express that the target
state of the participial event holds, and that the older sources mainly
have BE; he gives examples such as (5:69).
173
(5:69)
a.
b.
Hwar och en ande som bekenner, at
Jesus Christus är
each and one spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ is
kommen i kötet,
han är aff Gudhi
come
in the.flesh he is from God
‘Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is
from God’
(GVB 1541, 1 John 4:2; Johannisson 1945:106)
at
Christus är dödher för wåra synder effter Scriffterna,
that Christ is dead for our sins
after
the.Scripture
och at
han är begraffuen, och at
han vpstånden är
and that he is buried
and that he resurrected is
på tridie daghen
on third the.day
‘that Christ has died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he is
buried, that he has resurrected on the third day’
(GVB 1541, 1 Cor 15:4; from Johannisson 1945:106)
For some of these examples, Johannisson’s interpretation can be discussed; for instance, (5:69a) states that Jesus Christ has become flesh,
and it seems likely that the intended interpretation is that the consequences of this change of state still remains. Note also that the example in (5:69b) involves the passive past participle begraffuen ‘buried’
in addition to the active participles dödher ‘dead’ and vpstånden ‘resurrected’; we do not expect stative passives to allow an experiential
reading either (cf. section 5.1 above). As we will see further below, the
question is how the distinction between perfect and perfect-like construction is made, and what it means to say that the target state or result
holds. I return to stative passives in the historical records in chapter 6
(section 6.4).
On the whole, unaccusative verbs are rather infrequent in experiential
perfects, both with BE and HAVE. The number of cases is small even in
the longer texts in the material; in the text by Olaus Petri (of which I
have investigated 125 pages) the number of examples with BE with an
experiential reading amounts to little more than a handful. This also
means that differences between authors and texts are difficult, if not
impossible, to trace. In any case, the occurrence of BE in experiential
perfect-type examples does not seem to be limited to some writers or
texts, and it does not appear to be exclusively lexically determined; both
change of location verbs like komma ‘come’ and change of state verbs
like varda ‘become’ and ske ‘happen’ occur with BE; see (5:68) and
(5:69) above.
Based on the higher number of examples with BE in experiential contexts and with e.g. temporal adverbials that give the time of the transition or process, and not the time of the target state, Johannisson con-
174
cludes that BE is a temporal auxiliary in older Swedish, but not in Old
Norse, Present-Day Icelandic and Present-Day Swedish. This would
explain the difference between older Swedish and Icelandic with regard
to examples with an experiential reading, but would leave the restriction
on BE in past counterfactuals unexplained. Again, bearing the otherwise
considerable variation in older Swedish in mind, the absence of BE in
past counterfactuals is significant and should be taken into account.
Moreover, if we analyse BE as a temporal auxiliary, the fact that also
HAVE could form perfects with unaccusatives needs to be accounted
for; in Present-Day Danish, unaccusative verbs are ungrammatical in
HAVE-perfects. We could perhaps imagine a situation where both
HAVE and BE form perfects with participles of unaccusative verbs, but
where BE is a more marked alternative for experiential perfects and
counterfactuals, while HAVE is the marked option in resultative perfects. This would mean that counterfactuals with BE were more marked
than experiential perfects, and so marked that they were never used. It
would clearly be preferred if the difference in distribution could be related to a syntactic-semantic distinction, and not to a notion of markedness not correlated with any syntactic or semantic difference between
the constructions.
In the following section, I look closer at some of the examples that
Johannisson takes as evidence for an analysis of the construction with
BE as a perfect and compare them to stative passives in Present-Day
Swedish. The large majority of the unambiguous cases involve adverbial
modification of some sort; we therefore need to consider possible explanations for the (lack of) restrictions on adverbials that do not require
the assumption that BE is a temporal auxiliary in older Swedish.
5.5.2. Adverbials and BE
When Johannisson (1945) points to factors that favour either HAVE or
BE in the older Scandinavian languages, he largely focuses on adverbial
modification; he investigates the effects that negation, temporal adverbials, locative adverbials and so on have the choice of auxiliary. For older
Swedish, he notes a good deal of variation. For him, the relevant distinction is between eventivity and stativity, and he appears to assume that
stative constructions that express resultativity cannot include an eventive component. I have instead tied the variation to the distinction between the experiential and the resultative readings, or, rather, to the
distinction between perfect (which allows both readings) and perfect-
175
like construction (which disallows the experiential reading). However,
while a certain kind of modification can be typical for the experiential
perfect, the presence/absence of a particular adverbial does not automatically distinguish perfects from perfect-like constructions. The difference between perfects and perfect-like constructions is, as I have
argued, a question of tense; the difference between the experiential and
resultative readings, on the other hand, relates to aspect.
In the following, I consider negation, aspectual adverbials and manner
adverbials with BE in older Swedish compared to the modern languages.122 Temporal adverbials will be discussed separately in section
chapter 6 (section 6.3.3) below. I largely restrict myself to a descriptive
overview of the adverbial modification with BE in older and PresentDay Swedish, without giving an account of the syntax of adverbs. In
section 5.5.3.4, I briefly comment on the question how adverbs are
licensed.
5.5.2.1. Negation
It has been suggested that the presence of negation favours HAVE in
older English and older Scandinavian (Fridén 1948:46, Kytö 1997,
Johannisson 1945:38). However, counterfactuals are more often negated
than other sentences, and when McFadden & Alexiadou (2007:13) exclude counterfactuals from the investigation, there is no significant difference in the use of HAVE and BE between negated and non-negated
perfect-type constructions in older English. Negation is generally not
restricted to experiential perfects, but is possible in the perfect-like construction with BE in Present-Day Swedish; see (5:70) where the reading
is that the result of the participial event is not (yet) attained. When
negation with o- ‘un-’ is possible, it has a similar reading; cf. (5:71).
(5:70)
a.
b.
122
Alla deltagare
är
inte anlända (ännu).
all participants are not arrived yet
‘All participants have not arrived (yet).’
Artikeln är inte skriven (ännu).
the.paper is not written yet
‘The paper has not been written (yet).’
For an overview of the adverbial modification in passives with BE in Modern
Swedish, see SAG (1999, 4:393ff.).
176
(5:71)
Artikeln är (fortfarande) oskriven.
the.paper is still
unwritten
‘The paper has (still) not been written.’
Hence, Old Norse examples like (5:72) below, which are exceptional
according to Johannisson (1945:38), could be treated as a negated perfect-like construction. In other words, the example in (5:72) states that
none of the men are in the target state of falling or becoming wounded.
(5:72)
En i ỏllvm þessum socknvm. sem nv var fra sagt,
but in all
these attacks
that now were from said
var engi
hans manna fallinn oc engi sarr
vorðinn
was none.of his men
fallen and none wounded become
‘But in all these attacks which now have been related, none of his
men had fallen, and none had been wounded.’
(Stjórn 14th c.:370; from Johannisson 1945:38)
Some variants of negation are, however, still expected to be illicit in
perfect-like constructions with BE. These include examples negated by
an adverb meaning ‘never’ which negates the existence of the entire
underlying eventuality (and not only its result) within a time span that
includes all past times. In Present-Day Icelandic, negation by aldrei
‘never’ is ungrammatical in examples such as (5:73). Instead, a perfect
with HAVE is required, as in (5:74).
(5:73)
* Jón er aldrei
John is never
(5:74)
farinn
gone
til Kína.
to China
Jón hefur aldrei farið til Kína.
John has never gone to China
‘John has never gone to China.’
In older Swedish, there is, as expected, a contrast between examples like
those in (5:75) below; (5:75a) is an experiential HAVE-perfect negated
by aldrig ‘never’, while (5:75b) involves BE and has a resultative reading (cf. also Johannisson 1945:105 fn. 4).
(5:75)
a.
b.
Såsom än nu aldrig annars
haffuer tilgångit
as
yet
never otherwise have
happened
‘As yet never have happened otherwise’
(L. Petri *1499:ii; Johannisson 1945:105)
Bann
är ingalunda til förachtandes, när ther med
excommunication is not.at.all to scorn
when there with
är retteliga tilgånget
is rightly happened
177
‘Excommunication is not at all to be scorned, when it happens
rightly’
(L. Petri *1499:33; Johannisson 1945:105 fn. 5)
However, there are a few examples with BE and negation by aldrig
‘never’ throughout the period up until the 18th century; see (5:76) (cf.
also the examples listed by Johannisson 1945:104f.).
(5:76)
men som dhetta aldrig är skeet,
ej heller hade någon
but as this
never is happened not either had any
apparence
til at kunna
skee,
appearence to to be.able.to happen
‘but as this has never happened, nor had any chance of happening’
(Spegel *1645:111)
In some cases, an adverb meaning ‘never’ is in fact possible in the perfect-like construction, also in Icelandic; examples such as those in (5:77)
are attested in Present-Day Icelandic.
(5:77)
ég var aldrei komin á fætur þegar þú komst frá Hofsósi.
I was never come on feet when you came.ST from Hofsós
‘I was never on my feet when you arrived from Hofsós’
(Google)
In (5:77), the adverb aldrei does not negate the existence of the event of
getting up on the feet at any point in time; it does not state that the
speaker has never been on her feet. Instead, the example states that there
is no interval when you come to Hofsós and where the target state of the
event of getting up on the feet holds (cf. Jónsson 1992:140f.). On a
similar reading, the adverbial aldrig ‘never’ is possible both in stative
passives and with e.g. adjectives and locative adverbials in Swedish.
Consider the examples in (5:78) below (and the English translation of
(5:77) above).
(5:78)
a.
b.
Fridas
uppsats är aldrig färdigskriven
när
det är
Frida’s
essay is never finished.written when it
is
dags
att lämna in.
time
to
hand
in
‘Frida’s essay is never finished when it is time to hand in.’
Han är aldrig där (när
jag kommer hem).
he is never there when I
come
home
‘He is never there when I come home.’
178
The Present-Day Swedish passive in (5:78a) states that there is no
temporal interval of which it is true that it is time to hand in and that the
target state of the completion of Frida’s essay holds; it does not state
that Frida has not finished writing an essay at any point in time. Typically, a temporal adverbial is required to restrict the set of intervals that is
negated.
However, the occurrence of aldrig ‘never’ with BE in older Swedish
does not seem to be restricted to cases like those in (5:77) or (5:78).
Consider the examples in (5:79) below where aldrig negates the existence of the participial eventuality; (5:79a) states that there has been no
event of seeing them (thereafter), whereas (5:79b) expresses that there
has been no event of such shame (to the one the king has sent out).
(5:79)
a.
b.
sädan
ära dhe i lapmarken aldrig sedda wordne
thereafter are they in Lapland never seen
become
‘after that they have never been seen in Lapland’
(Tornæus 1653:55; from Johannisson 1945:105)
Then Konungen haffuer vthsändt / Är aldrigh sådan Nesa
the.one the.king
has
out.sent is never
such
shame
händt
happened
‘Such shame has never happened to him who the King has sent out.’
(Messenius I *1579:15)
Even if many of the examples with negation need not be treated as experiential perfects, the use of BE appears to be somewhat less restricted
in older Swedish than we would expect if we treat the construction with
BE as a stative perfect-like construction of the same kind as in Icelandic.
The question is, however, further complicated by the fact that passives
with BE can sometimes be negated by aldrig in Present-Day Swedish,
even when aldrig negates the existence of the participial eventuality;
consider (5:80a), which states that there is no event of somebody using
the shirt at any point in the past. Also compare (5:80b) with the older
Swedish example in (5:79a) above.
(5:80)
a.
b.
Den här skjortan är aldrig använd.
this here shirt
is never used
‘This shirt has never been used.’
Ett sådant djur
är aldrig tidigare skådat.
a
such
animal is never before seen
‘Such an animal has never been seen before.’
We can conclude that negation (by adverbs meaning ‘never’) does not
necessarily distinguish perfects from non-perfects. At the same time, we
179
need to account for the difference with regard to negation by ‘never’ between the Icelandic construction with BE + active participle, on the one
hand, and the older Swedish active construction with BE and certain
Present-Day Swedish passives with BE, on the other. In the next section,
we will see that there is a difference between Swedish and Icelandic also
with respect to adverbs of frequency and iteration.
5.5.2.2. Adverbs of frequency and iteration
Whereas Johannisson (1945) treats cases with adverbs of repetition or
frequency and examples with a distributive reading in the same way, I
disregard examples with a distributive reading but without aspectual
modification, like that in (5:81).
(5:81)
the […] äre så medh stomma synder […] falne i gudz
they
are so with dumb sins
fallen in God’s
grässeliga förtörnelse
terrible
anger
‘they have so through dumb sins fallen into the terrible anger of God’
(Petri Klosterregler *1493:519; from Johannisson 1945:103)
Examples like this do not necessarily have an experiential reading; the
example in (5:81) could instead express that the target state of the participial verb falla ‘fall’ holds for all individuals referred to by the subject.
As in the case of negation by never there are, however, still examples
with BE that are expected to be unattested if BE was not a temporal
auxiliary in older Swedish; cf. e.g. (5:82) below (repeated from (5:68)
above).
(5:82)
a.
b.
Thet är offta skeedt,
at […]
it
is often happened that
‘It has often happened that...’
(Petri *1493:3)
Vbbo […] bygde Vbsal / Ther altidh är skedt
Ubbo
built Uppsala there always is happened
Kongars waal
kings’
election
‘Ubbo built Uppsala where the election of kings have always taken
place’
(Messenius I *1579:4)
Like the negation ‘never’, adverbs of frequency and iteration are possible in perfect-like constructions if they take scope over the copula (or
180
rather, the matrix assertion time). Hence, the example in (5:83a) is
grammatical only on a reading where the intervals where the target state
of the locking out holds are frequent, and not on a reading where the
events of locking the children out are. As in the case of negation, the
first reading is often easier to get when a temporal adverbial restricts the
set of intervals that the frequency adverb ranges over; cf. (5:83b).
(5:83)
a. (*) Barnen
är
ofta utelåsta
ur huset.
the.children are often out.locked of the.house
Intended: ‘The children have been locked out of the house often.’
Grammatical reading: ‘It is often the case that the children are locked
out of the house.’
b. Barnen
är ofta utelåsta
ur huset
när
vi
the.children are often out.locked of the.house when we
kommer hem.
come
home
‘Often when we come home, the children are locked out of the
house.’
Also the position of the adverb has consequences for the reading; cf.
(5:84a) and (5:84b).
(5:84)
a. * Staden var förstörd
två gånger.
the.city was destroyed two times
Intended: ‘The city had been destroyed twice.’
b. Två gånger var staden förstörd.
two times was the.city destroyed
‘On two occasions, the city had been destroyed.’
A sentence final adverb like in (5:84a) primarily has the (ungrammatical) reading where it specifies the number of occurrences of the participial event. The sentence initial adverb in (5:84b) on the other hand,
has the grammatical reading; (5:84b) states that there were two occasions were the city was in the state of being destroyed, and not that the
city had been destroyed twice.
However, as with aldrig ‘never’, frequency adverbs in sentence final
position are sometimes possible with BE in Present-Day Swedish; consider the contrast between (5:85a) and (5:85b). The example in (5:85a)
states that there have been many occurrences of the events of repainting
the house, and not (necessarily) that there are many intervals when the
house is repainted.
(5:85)
a.
Huset
är ommålat ofta.
the.house is repainted often
‘The house has been repainted often.’
181
b. * Staden är förstörd
ofta.
the.city is destroyed often
We find a similar contrast with adverbs of specific iteration; cf. (5:86a)
and (5:86b).
(5:86)
a.
Huset
är ommålat två gånger.
the.house is repainted two times
‘The house has been repainted twice.’
b. * Staden är redan förstörd
två gånger.
the.city is already destroyed two times
Unlike (5:85b) (and (5:86b)), the example in (5:85a) (and (5:86a)) involves an event which can have effects (or a result in a wider sense) that
accumulate when the event is repeated. A city which has been destroyed
several times can still be rebuilt and will no longer be a destroyed city,
while a house which has been repainted will always be a repainted
house. However, the distinction is often subtle to make, particularly in
the historical material. I return to it at more length in chapter 6 below,
where I mainly discuss modern data.
We can conclude that the number of examples with BE and adverbs
of frequency or iteration that are unexpected under an analysis of BE +
participle as a perfect-like construction is considerably smaller than
what Johannisson (1945) claims. The possibility of adverbs of frequency
or iteration in constructions with BE is, in fact, not a strong argument
for the analysis of BE as a temporal auxiliary, and it would force us to
assume that also certain passives with BE are perfects. We have seen
that older Swedish constructions with BE rather behave like certain
stative passives with BE than like the active construction with BE in
Icelandic. Again, the data seem to require a finer distinction than one
between perfects and non-perfects.
5.5.2.3. Manner adverbials
In Present-Day Swedish, the construction with BE + participle allows
certain kinds of manner modification, namely instrument adverbials and
what I will refer to as resultative (manner) adverbials; cf. (5:87) and
(5:88) respectively.123 The resultative manner adverbials in (5:88) do
123
The necessity of distinguishing resultative adverbials from other manner
adverbials has been pointed out previously (see e.g. Alexiadou et al. 2003a).
182
not (only) specify the way that the process proceeds, but say something
about its result.
(5:87)
a.
b.
(5:88)
a.
b.
Brevet
är skrivet med bläckpenna.
the.letter is written with ink.pen
‘The letter has been written with an ink pen.’
Fläckarna är
borttagna
med terpentin.
the.stains are away.taken with turpentine
‘The stains have been removed with turpentine.’
Lamporna är
ordentligt släckta.
the.lamps are properly turned.off
‘The lamps have been turned off properly.’
Fläckarna är
försiktigt borttagna.
the.stains are carefully away.taken
‘The stains have been carefully removed.’
Manner adverbials like långsamt ‘slowly’ or fort ‘quickly’, which do not
relate to the target state, are disallowed in passives with BE; see
(5:89).124
(5:89)
a.
Brevet
är (*långsamt ) skrivet för hand.
the.letter is slowly
written by hand
‘The letter has been (*slowly) written by hand.’
b. * Fläckarna är
borttagna
(*med snabba rörelser).
the.stains are away.taken with
quick movements
‘The stains have been removed (*with quick movements).’
Johannisson (1945:115f.) claims that BE is more common than HAVE
in examples with manner adverbials in older Swedish; he notes 55 cases
with BE and 23 with HAVE. However, judging from the list of examples, he includes several different kinds of adverbials in this group.
As in Present-Day Swedish, BE is possible with instruments and resultative manner adverbials in older Swedish; cf. the example in (5:90) below which involves an instrument (te häst ‘by horse’).
(5:90)
124
boo’n […] som war kommen te häst
the.farmer who was come
by horse
‘the farmer who had come by horse’
(Columbus I *1642:56)
Many manner adverbs can have a resultative reading as well as a pure manner
reading where only the process is modified; adverbs meaning ‘slowly’ and ‘quickly’
cannot.
183
Also agent-oriented adverbials, causes and purpose clauses are included
by Johannisson, as in examples like (5:91). I return to these adverbials
in chapter 7 and 8.
(5:91)
Ty
the äro vthfarne för hans nampns skul
because they are out.gone for his
name’s sake
‘Because they have gone out for the sake of his name’
(GVB 1541, 3 John:7; from Johannisson 1945:116)
None of the examples listed by Johannisson has a manner adverbial like
långsamt ‘slowly’, nor are there any clear examples in the texts investigated here.125 The distinction among the adverbials is, arguably, difficult to make, and many adverbials are ambiguous. Here, it suffices that
the possibility of BE with certain kinds of manner adverbials hardly provides a strong argument for an analysis of BE as a temporal auxiliary.
5.5.2.4. A remark on adverbs
With stricter distinctions which focus on the difference between experiential and resultative readings, the number of examples with BE for expected HAVE given by Johannisson (1945) should be shifted somewhat.
We have seen that the mere presence of certain kinds of adverbial modification does not force an analysis of BE as a temporal auxiliary; negation and iteration are, for instance, not necessarily excluded in perfectlike constructions. However, there are examples of BE in examples with
an experiential reading in older Swedish which are ungrammatical in
Present-Day Icelandic and which do not appear in the Old Norse
sources. These involve certain cases with an adverb meaning ‘never’,
some of the cases with aspectual adverbs, and experiential examples
which lack adverbial modification.
In the kind of framework assumed here, adverbial modification is an
important diagnostic in the analysis of structure. In stative passives, the
possibility of modification by an adverb meaning ‘recently’ suggests
that the participle has an eventive component (see chapter 2, section
125
There is one example from the 17th century text by Dahlberg which is a possible
exception; see (i) below. This single example hardly allows for any conclusions.
(i) detta war så secret och tyst
tilgånget
this was so secretly and quietly happened
‘This had happened so secretly and quietly.’
(Dahlberg *1625:195)
184
2.2.2), and in infinitivals the possibility of temporal adverbials with a
different tense specification than the matrix tense suggests the presence
of a non-finite tense (see chapter 3, section 3.6.1). In chapter 8 below, I
also take the possibility of agentive by-phrases as evidence for the presence of an initP in the verb phrase. On the other hand, the impossibility
of certain kinds of adverbial modification cannot necessarily be taken as
evidence for the absence of a particular element in the structure. Most
notably, present perfects are incompatible with positional past time adverbials in English and Swedish, but presumably still involve a nonfinite past tense. Hence, a combination of elements can exclude a certain
kind of adverbial, even if one of the involved elements in a different
configuration would license it.
While the importance of adverbs is generally recognized, their syntax
is debated (see e.g. Austin, Engelberg & Rauh 2004a and references
cited there). As mentioned in chapter 3 above, e.g. Alexiadou (1997)
and Cinque (1999) argue that adverbs are specifiers of functional heads.
Others, e.g. Svenonius (2002), present arguments in favour of the possibility of multiple adjunction, which more straightforwardly accounts for
variability in adverb placement. For my investigation, where the focus is
not on the placement of adverbs relative to each other and other elements, it suffices that the possibility of adverbial modification is connected to the presence of (combinations of) functional heads; aspectual
adverbials relate to AspP and agent adverbials and instruments to initP.
5.6. Concluding remarks
From the extensive investigation of the alternation between HAVE and
BE in older Swedish and Old Norse, Johannisson (1945) concludes that
BE was a temporal auxiliary in older Swedish, but not in Old Norse.
Throughout the history of Icelandic, the construction with BE + active
participle appears to have been a stative, perfect-like construction without the tense properties of a perfect. In examples with an experiential
reading, HAVE is therefore the only option. The results from my investigation support the conclusion that there is a difference between
Icelandic and older Swedish with regard to constructions with BE; BE is
in several respects less restricted in older Swedish than in Icelandic.
This does, however, not automatically mean that BE is a temporal auxiliary in older Swedish. In fact, the generalization that HAVE is favoured in experiential contexts holds for older Swedish too, although the
variation is greater than in Icelandic. Moreover, the fact that BE is un-
185
attested in past counterfactuals suggests that BE was not a temporal
auxiliary.
On the basis of Iatridou’s (2000) account of counterfactuals, and
following McFadden & Alexiadou (2005 et seq.), I have argued that a
past counterfactual reading requires two layers of past tense morphology, one layer that contributes the past tense semantics and one layer
that contributes counterfactuality. Therefore, a pluperfect, which involves a combination of a finite past tense and a non-finite past tense, is
required for a past counterfactual. Since perfect-like constructions do
not involve a non-finite tense, but a tenseless past participle, they can
only get a present tense reading in counterfactuals. We have seen that
this holds both for stative passives with BE and for the active construction with BE in Present-Day Swedish, Norwegian and Icelandic. In
German and Danish, perfects with BE (or HAVE) are possible in past
counterfactuals, whereas passives with BE are not.
McFadden & Alexiadou (2006a) suggest that HAVE did not replace
BE in older English but appeared with unaccusative verbs as soon as it
had developed into a perfect auxiliary. They also note that in English,
the frequency of BE + unaccusative verbs as compared to the total
number of clauses is rather stable throughout the period from 1150 to
1710, whereas the frequency of HAVE rises steadily during the same
period (as noted in chapter 4, section 4.3.3).
Also in Middle Dutch and Middle Low German, BE was disfavoured
in past counterfactuals, though HAVE was not categorical as in older
English and older Swedish (see Kern 1912, Shannon 1995:485; cf. also
McFadden & Alexiadou 2006b).126 If the proposal by McFadden &
Alexiadou is on the right track, the restriction on BE in counterfactuals
was lost in Dutch (and German) when the construction with BE developed into a perfect. This also means that the perfects with HAVE was
established slightly earlier than the perfects with BE in languages like
Dutch; in English and the Scandinavian languages apart from Danish,
BE never became a temporal auxiliary. In fact, in Danish, the perfect
with BE appears to develop considerably later than the HAVE-perfect.
Johannisson (1945:219) observes that HAVE was more common with
unaccusative verbs in older than in Present-Day Danish, and that HAVE
was particularly common in counterfactuals. He also notes that Swedish
and Danish largely behave in the same way until the 17th century (cf.
Falk & Torp 1900).
126
Ledgeway 2003 points to a similar pattern in 14th and 15th century Neapolitan.
186
The historical data investigated in this chapter suggest that what we
have in older Swedish is neither a perfect like the Present-Day Swedish
perfect with HAVE nor a stative perfect-like construction with the same
properties as the Icelandic construction with BE. Moreover, the Icelandic construction with BE + active participle does not always pattern
with stative passives in Swedish; the latter are less restricted in experiential contexts. This clearly does not mean that stative passives are perfects; unlike perfects, they are not grammatical in past counterfactuals
(unless embedded in a perfect), they disallow manner adverbials like
snabbt ‘quickly’, and they are ungrammatical in wh-clefts (cf. section
5.1 above). In fact, given the account of the perfect outlined in chapter 3
above, the difference between experiential and resultative readings is
independent of perfect semantics. Instead, it depends on aspectual
distinctions that are expected to appear also outside the perfect. Hence,
we seem to have perfect-like constructions with tenseless past participles which have varying aspectual values. In the next chapter, I therefore introduce further distinctions among past participles and discuss
their aspectual properties.
187
6. Aspects of perfect-like results
The investigation of BE + active participle in older Swedish and the
comparison with Icelandic in the previous chapter lead to the conclusion
that BE was not a temporal auxiliary in older Swedish and Icelandic. At
the same time, I noted that we need to make finer distinctions among the
perfect-like constructions to account for the data; some examples with
BE seem to have more in common with perfects than others.
In this chapter, I introduce a distinction between three different kinds
of stative participles, progressive state, target state and resultant state
participles. As we will see, resultant state participles have more in
common with perfect participles than the former two, but none of them
should be confused with the perfect participle. There are instead reasons
to assume that the perfect has developed out of a resultant state construction.
The distinction between target states and resultant states is introduced
in section 6.1. Since aspectual distinctions are of importance for the
analysis of the different perfect-like constructions, section 6.2 concerns
aspect and its connection to Aktionsart (telicity) in Swedish. In section
6.3, I discuss the aspect of different perfect-like constructions and the
difference between Swedish and Icelandic. Grammaticality judgements
and intuitions about possible contexts are required in order to make the
relevant distinctions, and the discussion therefore centres around present-day examples. At the end of the chapter I make clear how the distinctions bear on the analysis of the older Swedish data.
6.1. Target states and resultant states
In the previous chapter, I noted that some stative passives allow negation by aldrig ‘never’ and modification by frequency adverbs like ofta
‘often’ in Present-Day Swedish, while others do not; cf. again the examples in (5:85) above (repeated in (6:1) below). I tentatively suggested
that the difference depends on the reversibility (or cumulativity) of the
result of the eventuality.
188
(6:1)
a.
b.
Huset
är ommålat ofta.
the.house is repainted often
‘The house has been repainted often.’
Staden är förstörd
(*ofta).
the.city is destroyed often
‘The city has been destroyed (*often).’
As noted by Kratzer (2000), some, but not all, stative passives in the
complement of BE can be modified by the adverb fortfarande ‘still’; cf.
(6:2) and (6:3).127
(6:2)
a.
b.
(6:3)
a.
b.
Staden är fortfarande förstörd.
the.city is still
destroyed
‘The city is still destroyed.’
Däcken är
fortfarande pumpade.
the.tires are still
pumped.up
‘The tires are still inflated.’
Huset
är (*fortfarande) ommålat.
the.house is still
repainted
‘The house has (*still) been repainted.’
Artikeln är (*fortfarande) utskriven.
the.paper is still
out.printed
‘The paper has (*still) been printed out.’
With regard to modification by fortfarande ‘still’, participles like ommålat ‘repainted’ and utskriven ‘printed’ resemble perfects; perfects also
disallow modification by fortfarande; cf. (6:4).
(6:4)
a.
Artikeln har (*fortfarande) skrivits
the.paper has still
print.SUP.PASS
‘The paper has (*still) been printed out.’
ut.
out
127
There is sometimes an apparent mismatch between participles that disallow
iterative adverbials, and participles that allow modification by fortfarande ‘still’. As
we will see below, this is because a reading that makes iterative adverbials possible
and fortfarande impossible can be forced with participles of most verbs. The fact
that fortfarande can cooccur with iterative adverbials is irrelevant; it is only possible
when fortfarande takes scope over the iterative adverbial; cf. (i) and (ii) (and see
below).
(i)
(ii)
Han har fortfarande läst boken
he
has still
read the.book
‘He has still read the book two times.’
* Två
two
gånger har han fortfarande
times has he still
två gånger.
two times
läst boken.
read the.book
189
b.
Frida har (*fortfarande) målat om huset.
Frida has still
repainted the.house
‘Frida has (*still) repainted the house.’
With the terminology of Parsons (1990), Kratzer (2000) suggests that
the behaviour with respect to still brings out a distinction between stative passives which (like perfects) express a resultant state that necessarily holds forever, and target state passives which denote the in principle reversible target state specified by the participial predicate; cf.
(6:5) below.128
(6:5)
a. Resultant state:
“For every event e that culminates, there is a corresponding state that
holds forever after. […] If Mary eats lunch, then there is a state that
holds forever after: the state of Mary’s having eaten lunch.”
b. Target state:
“It is important not to identify the Resultant-state of an event with its
‘target’ state. If I throw a ball onto the roof, the target state of this
event is the ball’s being on the roof, a state that may or may not last
for a long time”
(Parsons 1990:234f.; see also Kratzer 2000).
Since resultant states hold forever, they are incompatible with adverbs
like still; the participle pumpad ‘pumped’ in (6:2a) above expresses a
target state, whereas utskriven ‘printed’ in (6:2b) is a resultant state
passive.129
In the following, I use incompatibility with fortfarande ‘still’ as a
way to distinguish resultant state participles from other stative participles. There are, however, contexts where this diagnostic does not apply, which will be disregarded. First, fortfarande is possible also with
resultant state participles in the presence of sentence negation, as long as
it takes scope over the negation; cf. (6:6a) and (6:6b). Negation makes
fortfarande possible also in perfects; see (6:7).
128
Similarly, SAG (1999, 2:593) suggests that compatibility with fortfarande is
given as a test for adjectival participles, and ‘completely verbal participles’ are
assumed to express an irreversible state.
129 Kratzer (2000) points out that the test is not absolutely reliable; the example in
(i) arguably expresses a target state, and given a particular context (where dead
people can come back to life) modification by still is possible; cf. (ii) which is fine.
(i)
(ii)
# Melchiades is still dead.
(Kratzer 2000: ex. (3))
The TV is still dead.
190
(6:6)
a.
Brevet
är fortfarande inte skrivet.
the.letter is still
not written
‘The letter has still not been written.’
b. * Brevet
är inte skrivet fortfarande.
the.letter is not written still
(6:7)
a.
Peter har fortfarande inte öppnat paketet.
Peter has still
not opened the.parcel
‘Peter has still not opened the parcel.’
b. * Peter har inte öppnat paketet
fortfarande.
Peter has not opened the.parcel still
Also negation by o- ‘un-’ affects the possibility of fortfarande; cf.
(6:8).130
(6:8)
a.
b.
Brevet
är fortfarande oskrivet.
the.letter is still
unwritten
‘The letter is still unwritten.’
Brevet
är (*fortfarande) skrivet.
the.letter is still
written
‘The letter has (*still) been written.’
Embick suggests that “an event in the scope of negation cannot be modified by an adverbial that takes scope over the negative” (2004a:360, fn.
6). Apparently, the possibility of modification by fortfarande can only
be used to distinguish between different kinds of participles in the
absence of negation.
130
Verbs that do not form target state participles can have participles which are
negated by o- ‘un-’, as in (i). This suggests that the negated participles are resultant
state participles. However, in other cases negation by o- makes a degree modifier
possible; cf. (ii) (and see chapter 2, section 2.2.2 above).
(i) a. Brevet är (*fortfarande) skrivet.
the.letter is still
written
‘The letter has (*still) been written.’
b. Brevet är (fortfarande) oskrivet.
the.letter is still
unwritten
‘The letter is (still) unwritten.’
(ii) a. Den är (??ganska) använd.
it
is pretty
used
‘It has been (??pretty) used.’
b. Den är (ganska) oanvänd.
it
is pretty
unused
‘It is pretty unused.’
191
Secondly, fortfarande ‘still’ is possible with resultant state participles
and perfects in iterative contexts; see (6:9) and (6:10).
(6:9)
a.
b.
(6:10)
a.
b.
Hon är (*fortfarande) kammad i håret
med guldkam.
she is still
combed
in the.hair with golden.comb
‘Her hair has (*still) been combed with a golden comb.’
Hon är fortfarande kammad i
håret
med
she is still
combed
in
the.hair with
guldkam
varje dag.
golden.comb every day
‘Her hair has still been combed with a golden comb every day.’
Hon har (*fortfarande) kammat håret.
she has still
combed the.hair
‘She has (*still) combed her hair.’
Hon har fortfarande kammat håret
varje dag.
she has still
combed the.hair every day
‘She has still combed her hair every day.’
Thirdly, fortfarande is sometimes possible on a modal reading, as in
(6:11). Also this reading is disregarded in the following.
Han har fortfarande tömt
brevlådan.
he has still
emptied the.mail.box
‘[Whatever you say,] it is still true that he has emptied the mail box.’
(6:11)
Only telic verbs can form target state participles, but not all of them do;
as we will see in chapter 8, they (generally) require a verb phrase that
includes resP (which introduces a target state). Resultant states, on the
other hand, are not lexically restricted; according to Parsons, they follow
from every event that culminates (or terminates). Also atelic and semelfactive verbs can (at least marginally) form resultant state participles; cf.
German in (6:12) and Swedish in (6:13).
(6:12)
a.
b.
(6:13)
a.
Die Katze ist schon gestreichelt.
the cat
is
already petted
‘The cat has already been petted.’
Dieser Kinderwagen
ist schon geschoben.
this
baby.carriage is
already pushed
‘The baby carriage has already been pushed.’
(Kratzer 2000:ex. (7))
Katten är klappad.
the.cat is petted
‘The cat has been petted.’
192
b.
Babyn
är rapad.
the.baby is burped
‘The baby has been burped.’
As Kratzer (2000) points out, these examples sound “bizarre out of the
blue, but as soon as we impose a ‘job is done’ or ‘that’s over’ interpretation they become fine”.131 For (6:12a) and (6:13a), we can, for example,
imagine a situation where somebody has to take care of a cat and make
sure to pet it once a day. An authentic (but elliptic) Swedish example is
given in (6:14); it is a list of what has been achieved over Christmas.
Skinkan nästan uppäten, systern hemfaren, släkten
the.ham almost up.eaten the.sister home.gone the.relatives
träffad.
seen
‘The ham [has] almost [been] finished, the sister [has] gone home, the
relatives [have been] seen.’
(Google)
(6:14)
It is worth noting that the resultant state passives are possible in the very
same contexts in Swedish and in German; according to Anagnostopoulou (2003a), the same is true for Greek resultant state passives.
Not all atelic predicates are equally marginal in stative passives; as
soon as the eventuality has contextually known or conventional temporal limits, they are more generally available; consider the examples in
(6:15).
(6:15)
a.
b.
c.
Den tröjan
är redan/??fortfarande använd.
that the.sweater is already/still
used
‘That sweater has already/??still been used.’
Blommorna är
redan/*fortfarande vattnade.
the.flowers
are already/still
watered
‘The flowers have already/*still been watered.’
Tröjorna
är
redan/*fortfarande tvättade.
the.sweaters are already/still
washed
‘The sweaters have already/*still been washed.’
As noted, both German and Swedish stative passives of telic predicates
generally assert that the target state holds at the time of the matrix clause
(i.e., they have a resultative reading); cf. the German examples in (5:62)
above (repeated as (6:16) below).
131
This reading is perhaps particularly salient with agentive predicates, but it is not
restricted to these.
193
(6:16)
a.
Ich habe mein Handy
verloren und dann gleich
I
have my cellphone lost
and then immediately
wieder gefunden.
again found
‘I have lost my cellphone and then found it again right away.’
b. Mein Handy
ist verschwunden und dann gleich
my cellphone is
disappeared
and then immediately
wieder aufgetaucht.
again up.turned
‘My cellphone has disappeared and then shown up again right away.’
c. * Mein Handy
ist verloren, und ich habe es dann
my cellphone is
lost
and I
have it then
gleich
wieder gefunden.
immediately again found
Intended: ‘My cellphone has been lost, and then I’ve found it again
right away.’
(McFadden & Alexiadou 2006a:275)
However, contra what has been assumed so far, in the right context,
stative passives need not assert that the target state holds at the time
expressed by the auxiliary; otherwise both frequency adverbs and atelic
predicates (which never specify a target state) would always be excluded
in stative passives.
Also telic verbs can sometimes have an experiential reading in stative
passives. Kratzer gives the example in (6:17) which can be “uttered
truth-fully by a police officer who is reporting the successful evacuation
of the building to his superior at a time when the tenants have moved
back in again”. Note that although the example in (6:17) may have an
experiential reading, it is not a BE-perfect; as we have seen, stative
passives differ from perfect e.g. by disallowing manner adverbials and
by being ungrammatical in past counterfactuals.
(6:17)
Das Gebäude ist geräumt.
the building is
evacuated
‘The building has been evacuated.’
(Kratzer 2000:ex. (23))
Also in Swedish, a stative passive of a telic verb generally asserts that
the target state holds regardless of whether modification by fortfarande
‘still’ is available or not; see (6:18a), which disallows fortfarande, and
(6:18b), which is infelicitous on a reading where the target state does not
hold. In other words, the resultative reading is not restricted to the target
state participle; we know that also perfects can have a resultative
reading.
194
(6:18)
a.
Dörren
är (*fortfarande) öppnad.
the.door is still
opened
‘The door has (*still) been opened.’
b. # Dörren är öppnad, men någon
har stängt
the.door is opened but somebody has closed
den igen.
it
again
As in German, there are contexts where a Swedish stative passive is
compatible with a reading where the target state does not hold; cf.
(6:19).
(6:19)
a.
b.
Middagen är både framdukad
och bortplockad. (Du är sen.)
the.dinner is both put.on.the.table and away.taken you are late
‘Dinner has both been put on the table and taked away. (You are
late.)’
Den boken
är lånad,
läst och tillbakalämnad.
that the.book is borrowed read and back.given
‘That book has been borrowed, read and returned.’
Parsons (1990) introduces resultant states to account for the semantics
of the perfect. In her discussion of German stative passives, Kratzer
suggests that resultant state participles have perfect aspect.132 As we
have seen, resultant state participles can have either a resultative or an
experiential reading, much like perfects. We could assume that the
difference between examples like those in (6:19) and (active) perfects is
a consequence of the composition of the verb phrase (e.g. the presence/
absence of an external argument) and not of tense or aspect. However,
the contextual restrictions on the experiential reading are the same
across verb classes, and there are no parallel restrictions on perfects.
Moreover, resultant state constructions differ from perfects, e.g. with
regard to the availability of a past counterfactual reading. This remains
unexplained under an analysis where they have the same temporalaspectual composition.
Kratzer’s distinction among stative passives can straightforwardly be
extended to active participles in Swedish; in fact, the participle hemfaren ‘gone home’ in the example in (6:14) above is active. Many participles of unaccusative verbs are incompatible with modification by fortfarande ‘still’; see the perfect-like examples with BE in (6:20) and the
prenominal participles in (6:21).133
132
She states that in “the terminology of Nedjalkov & Jaxontov 1988, target state
passives would be resultatives and resultant state passives would be perfects”
(Kratzer 2000, fn. 2).
133 The form ankommen also have an adjectival use, meaning ‘drunk’ or ‘spoiled,
going bad’. This is disregarded here and in the following.
195
(6:20)
a.
b.
(6:21)
a.
b.
Båten
är (*fortfarande) ankommen till bryggan.
the.boat is still
arrived
to
the.wharf
‘The boat has (*still) arrived to the wharf.’
Deltagarna
är
(*fortfarande) hitresta
från Stockholm.
the.participants are still
here.travelled from Stockholm
‘The participants have (*still) come here from Stockholm.’
den (*fortfarande) ankomna båten
the still
arrived
the.boat
‘the (*still) arrived boat’
de (*fortfarande) hitresta
deltagarna
the still
here.travelled participants
‘the participants that (*still) have come here’
Other unaccusatives form participles which can be modified by fortfarande; cf. (6:22) and (6:23).
(6:22)
a.
b.
(6:23)
a.
b.
Han är fortfarande bortrest.
he is still
away.travelled
‘He is still away.’
Han är fortfarande avsvimmad.
he is still
off.fainted
‘He is still unconscious.’
den fortfarande bortresta
grannen
the still
away.travelled the.neighbour
‘the neighbour who is still away’
den fortfarande avsvimmade mannen
the still
off.fainted
the.man
‘the still unconscious man’
As with passives, it is possible to construct a context where a participle
of an unaccusative verb in the complement of BE is compatible with an
experiential reading (i.e. a reading where the target state does not hold at
the time of the matrix clause). The example in (6:24a) is, for instance,
possible on a reading where an application has to arrive somewhere and
then be sent off from there.134 Typically, the end of the target state is
134
The same holds for Norwegian constructions with BE + active or passive
participle:
(i)
Søknadene
er både kommet inn
the.application is both come in
er under kontroll.)
is under control
och sendt avgårde. (Så alt
and sent away
so everything
196
planned; the example in (6:24b) expresses that Frida has managed something within a limited period of time.
(6:24)
a.
b.
Ansökan
är inkommen och ivägskickad. (Så allt
the.application is in.come
and away.sent
so everything
är under kontroll.)
is under control
‘The application has come in and has been sent away. (So everything
is under control.)’
Frida är både hemkommen och utgången. (Nu vet jag
Frida is both home.come and out.gone now know I
inte var
hon är.)
not where she is
‘Frida has both come home and gone out. (Now I don’t know where
she is.)’
I conclude that resultant state participles are possible in the same contexts in Present-Day Swedish as in older Swedish, but that they occurred
more frequently (and were less contextually restricted) in older Swedish.
In this way, the fact that the active construction with BE looked more
like a perfect in older Swedish than the typical stative passives do in
Present-Day Swedish can be accounted for without assuming that BE
was a temporal auxiliary. However, the difference between Swedish and
Icelandic with regard to e.g. frequency adverbs in the active construction
with BE still needs to be accounted for. It is not the case that Icelandic
lacks active resultant state participles; cf. the examples in (6:25), which
disallow modification by ennþá ‘still’.
(6:25)
a.
b.
Hún er (*ennþá) komin.
she is still
come
‘She has (*still) come.’
Það er (*ennþá) byrjað.
it
is still
begun
‘It has (*still) begun.’
In the following, I maintain that both target state participles and resultant state participles lack a TP, and that the difference between them
‘The application has come in and has been sent away. (So everything is
under control).’
(ii)
Middagen er både dekket fram och satt
bort.
(Du er sen.)
the.dinner is both set
out and taken away you are late
‘Dinner has both been put on the table and taken away. (You are late.)
197
should be derived with aspectual distinctions. We must therefore look a
bit closer at aspect and Aktionsart, and the difference between the two.
6.2. Times and events
The resultative aspect that Pancheva (2003) introduces to account for the
resultative perfect selects for telic events and expresses that the target
state of the event holds (see chapter 3, section 3.4.3). In the preceding
section, we could note that also atelic verbs occur in stative passives,
with a resultant state reading. Target state participles require telic predicates, but cannot be formed from all telic verbs; verbs like ankomma
‘arrive’ do not have target state participles. In this section, I address the
question what characterizes a telic event, and how telicity can be
derived. I also briefly discuss outer aspect in Swedish, and its relation to
event structure. In Swedish grammars, aspect and Aktionsart are often
not distinguished, and if they are, Swedish is simply assumed to lack
aspect.135 The discussion here is necessarily restricted to the most basic
distinctions and diagnostics, focusing particularly on how the aspectual
interpretation relates to the (a)telicity of the eventuality in Swedish, and
how aspectual distinctions can be made in the absence of specialized
morphology. I largely disregard complicating factors concerning e.g.
iteration and genericity.
6.2.1. Deriving telicity
It is well known that (a)telicity of a transitive verb can depend on the
properties of the direct object. In (6:26a), for example, the event of
eating comes to an end once an apple is eaten. In this way, a direct object of specified quantity provides a telos (an intrinsic endpoint) for the
event. In (6:26b), on the other hand, the direct object is of unspecified
quantity (i.e., it is not quantized, in the sense of Krifka 1989); the
eventuality therefore has no given endpoint.136
135
For an overview and discussion of the traditional view, see Platzack (1979) and
references cited there.
136 An expression like an apple is quantized since no subpart of an apple is also an
apple. The expression apples, on the other hand, is not quantized, since apples can
be a subpart of apples.
198
(6:26)
a.
b.
Frida äter ett äpple.
Frida eats an apple
‘Frida is eating an apple.’
Frida äter äpple.
Frida eats apple
‘Frida is eating apple.’
(Telic)
(Atelic)
An atelic eventuality, say eat apples, is often said to be homogeneous in
the sense that all parts of it are also events of eating apples. This is not
the case for telic events; no part of eating an apple involves an event of
eating an apple. The progressive of an atelic eventuality therefore
typically entails the perfect, while the progressive of a telic event does
not; cf. (6:27a) and (6:27b) (and see e.g. Vendler 1967, Dowty 1979).137
(6:27)
a.
b.
Hon håller på att äta ett äpple ≠> Hon har ätit ett äpple.
she
keeps at to eat an apple
she has eaten an apple
‘She is eating an apple’
‘She has eaten an apple.’
Hon håller på att äta äpple ⇒ Hon har ätit
äpple.
she
keeps at to eat apple
she has eaten apple
‘She is eating apple’
‘She has eaten apple.’
The correspondence between telicity and the quantization of the direct
object has sometimes led to the assumption that the direct object is
directly responsible for the telicity of the verb phrase (see e.g. Verkuyl
1972 et seq., Tenny 1994 among others). As pointed out by e.g. Jackendoff (1991) and Ramchand (2008a), there are also other means of
getting a telic reading than having a quantized direct object. Consider
the examples in (6:28) which are both telic; the direct object guld ‘gold’
in (6:28a) is not quantized, and the example in (6:28b) lacks an object
DP altogether.
137
As mentioned, Swedish lacks grammaticalized morphological marking of
aspect. For an unambiguous unbounded reading, I therefore sometimes use pseudocoordinations like (i) or the construction with hålla på (med) ‘keep at, be doing’ +
infinitive as in (ii).
(i)
Hon satt och läste en bok i
she sat and read a
book for
‘He sat reading a book for ten minutes.’
tio
ten
minuter.
minutes
(ii)
Hon höll på med att skriva ett brev i
en timme, men det
she kept at
with to write a letter for an hour
but it
blev
aldrig klart.
became never finished
‘She was writing a letter for an hour, but it was never finished.’
199
(6:28)
a.
b.
De hittade guld.
they found gold
‘They found gold.’
Frida reste
bort.
Frida travelled away
‘Frida went away.’
Moreover, a quantized direct object does not always give rise to telicity;
see the examples in (6:29) which are atelic regardless of the quantized
objects den nya skjortan ‘the new shirt’ and kärran ‘the cart’ (cf. Ramchand 2008a:25f.).
(6:29)
a.
b.
Han använde den nya skjortan i
tre dagar.
he used
the new the.shirt for three days
‘He used the new shirt for three days.’
Han drog
kärran
i
flera
timmar.
he pulled the.cart for several hours
‘He pulled the cart for hours.’
Ramchand (2008a) suggests that there is no element or feature directly
responsible for telicity. Instead, a telic reading can be derived in several
different ways, and a telic event can, but need not, involve a verb phrase
which includes resP and therefore specifies a target state. Only when
resP is missing do the properties of the direct object affect the (a)telicity
of the event. On the other hand, since resP denotes a target state, it
provides a telos regardless of the nature of the object. In (6:28a) above,
the verb hitta ‘find’ identifies the res head, and in (6:28b) the particle
bort ‘away’ does; consequently, both examples are telic, even though
they lack quantized direct object.138
Also verb phrases without resP can have a telic reading, by involving
a quantized direct object, a bounded Path, or a scale with a contextual
absolute value. Consider the verb läsa ‘read’ which, just like äta ‘eat’
above, is telic or atelic depending on its object; see (6:30).
138
Following Ramchand (2008a:31) and others, I assume that iteration relates to
outer aspect and can remove the conception of a telos (see below). In other words,
the verb anlända ‘arrive’ is telic (but iterative) in both (i) and (ii).
(i) a.
b.
Alla de nya gästerna anlände på en
all
the new the.guests arrived in
an
‘All the new guests arrived in an hour.’
Nya gäster anlände i
flera
timmar.
new guests arrived for several hours
‘New guests were arriving for several hours.’
(SAG 1999, 4:337)
timme.
hour
200
(6:30)
a.
b.
c.
Hon läser.
⇒
she reads
‘She reads/is reading’
Hon läser
serier.
⇒
she reads comics
‘She reads/is reading comics’
≠>
Hon läser
en bok.
she reads a book
‘She reads/is reading a book’
Hon har läst.
(Atelic)
she has read
‘She has read.’
Hon har läst serier.
(Atelic)
she has read comics
‘She has read comics.’
Hon har läst en bok. (Telic)
she has read a
book
‘She has read a book.’
Verbs like äta and read presumably carry the category features init and
proc. In addition, they require a DP which is both Initiator and Undergoer; see (6:31). Unlike the object of e.g. hitta ‘find’ (which is Resultee), the object of äta is not generated in a specifier position but in
the complement of proc. It is interpreted as Rheme, and it describes the
event introduced by the proc head (see Ramchand 2008a:46f.).
Process transitives: x read y
Lexical entry for read: [initi, proci]
[initP x read [procP x read [y]]]
(cf. Ramchand 2008a:64f.)
(6:31)
Ramchand points out that Rheme objects of verbs like läsa (or read)
have properties in common with a Path, since it specifies the extent of
the reading (2008a:47). Either the Rheme or the Path defines the trajectory that the Undergoer (the clause subject) traverses. Just like läsa gets
a telic reading in the presence of a quantized object, a verb like springa
is telic in the presence of a bounded Path; cf. the examples in (6:30)
above and (6:32) below.
(6:32)
a.
b.
Frida springer på vägen. ⇒ Frida har sprungit på vägen.
Frida runs
on the.road
Frida has run
on the.road
‘Frida is running on the road.’
‘Frida has run on the road.’
Frida springer en kilometer. ≠> Frida har sprungit en kilometer.
Frida runs
a kilometre
Frida has run
a kilometre
‘Frida is running a kilometre’
‘Frida has run a kilometre.’
In the absence of resP, a telic interpretation requires a quantized object
or a bounded Path, or a fixed final location in the complement of procP.
An atelic reading, on the other hand, emerges in the absence of a
quantized object, Path, a fixed final location (and a resP). The elements
that affect telicity have in common that they occur in the complement of
procP (like resP). An Undergoer, on the other hand, never affects telicity. Consider the examples in (6:33) and (6:34), which are all atelic
201
despite quantized Undergoers; the examples in (6:33) have subjects that
are Initiators and Undergoers, while the examples in (6:34) have
Undergoer objects.139 For further discussion and precise semantics, see
Ramchand (2008a:46ff. and references cited there).
(6:33)
a.
b.
(6:34)
a.
b.
Tre
tjejer springer. ⇒
three girls run
‘Three girls are running.’
Tre
tjejer läser.
⇒
three girls read
‘Three girls are reading.’
Tre tjejer har sprungit.
three girls have run
‘Three girls have run.’
Tre
tjejer har läst.
three girls
have read
‘Three girls have read.’
Han drar en vagn.
⇒
he pulls a cart
‘He is pulling a cart.’
Han använder tröjan. ⇒
he uses
the.sweater
‘He is using the sweater.’
Han har dragit en vagn.
he has pulled a
cart
‘He has pulled a cart.’
Han har använt tröjan.
he has used the.sweater
‘He has used the sweater.’
Now, consider deadjectival gradual change of state verbs like lengthen.
Hay, Kennedy & Levin (1999) argue that the base adjective (long)
provides a scalar structure which can, but need not, involve a fixed endpoint (much like a Path). Consider the examples in (6:35). The deadjectival verb straighten has a given endpoint, defined by the adjective
straight; the expression straighten the rope in (6:35a) therefore has a
telic reading. Long, on the other hand, defines an open scale; lengthen
the rope in (6:35b) is therefore atelic.
(6:35)
a.
b.
They are straightening the rope. ≠> They have straightened the rope.
They are lengthening the rope ⇒ They have lengthened the rope.
(Hay et al. 1999:(26), (27))
An endpoint can also be given by other material, or by the context and
our real world knowledge. Consider the examples in (6:36); whereas
lowering the blind is telic, lowering the heat is atelic, as shown by
(6:37). The difference crucially depends on the fact that there is a contextually known natural endpoint to the lowering of blinds (due to our
knowledge of blinds), but no such endpoint to the lowering of heat.
139
Many previous accounts of the correspondence between direct objects and
(a)telicity suggest that the relevant property of the object is ‘affectedness’ (see e.g.
Tenny 1994); on the account adopted here, the object of verbs like eat is not
affected, but rather specifies the extent to which the Undergoer (the clause subject)
is.
202
(6:36)
a.
b.
Kim lowered the blind.
Kim lowered the heat.
(Hay et al. 1999:(28), (30))
(6:37)
a.
b.
Kim is lowering the blind ≠> Kim has lowered the blind
Kim is lowering the heat ⇒ Kim has lowered the heat
(Hay et al. 1999:(29), (31))
The analysis in Hay et al. (1999) extends to gradual change of state
verbs like grow or increase (though they are not based on an adjective
that defines the scale). Consider the verb falla ‘fall’ in the examples in
(6:38) (where the iterative reading is disregarded).
(6:38)
a.
b.
När
Peter
spelade hockey, föll han (#i tio minuter)
when Peter played hockey fell he for ten minutes
‘When Peter played hockey, he fell (#for ten minutes).’
När Peter var ute i rymden, föll han (i tio minuter).
when Peter was out in the.space fell he for ten minutes
‘When Peter was up in space, he fell for ten minutes.’
Again, (a)telicity clearly depends on the context. In (6:38a), the implicit
Path has a contextually given natural endpoint (the ground) and we get a
telic interpretation; in (6:38b), there is no such given endpoint to the
falling, and the eventuality is therefore atelic. As pointed out by Dowty
(1979:61), also a sentence like John swam can have a telic interpretation
in a context where John is known to swim a specific distance regularly.
SAG (1999, 4:326) argues that the distinction between telic and atelic
predicates is not applicable to all verbal expressions in Swedish, but that
the speaker can leave open whether the event is telic or not; in (6:39),
what seem to be identical verbal expressions have different readings.140
While the example John swam presumably involves an implicit (but
contextually known) Path on its telic reading, the same can hardly be
said about the examples with bada ‘bathe’, since bada does not involve
directed motion and is incompatible with Paths; see (6:40).
(6:39)
a.
b.
140
Vi badade (på en kvart).
we bathed in
a
quarter
‘We bathed in fifteen minutes.’
Vi badade (i en kvart).
we bathed for a quarter
‘We bathed for fifteen minutes.’
(SAG 1999, 4:326)
SAG (1999) does not make a distinction between aspect and Aktionsart.
203
Vi *badade/simmade en kilometer.
we bathed/swam
a
kilometre
‘We *bathed/swam a kilometre.’
(6:40)
Now, if (a)telicity is sometimes given by the wider context, we could
perhaps assume that verbs like klappa ‘pet’ in stative passives like
(6:13a) above (repeated as (6:41) below) are telic in the particular context that is required for the resultant state participle to be possible. The
interpretation that a ‘job is done’ requires that the petting of the cat is a
well-defined task, and it arguably has an endpoint given by the context.
Katten är klappad.
the.cat is petted
‘The cat has been petted.’
(6:41)
However, the example is compatible with a for-adverbial just like an
atelic eventuality; see (6:42). I return to these examples in section 6.2.2
below, where I argue that both the example with klappa ‘pet’ in (6:41)
and the examples with bada ‘bathe’ in (6:39) are atelic.
Katten är redan klappad i
tio minuter idag.
the.cat is already petted for ten minutes today
‘The cat has already been petted for ten minutes today.’
(6:42)
The examples with lower in (6:36) above, on the other hand, clearly
differ in telicity, as shown by (6:37). Following Hay et al. (1999) and
Ramchand (2008a), I therefore maintain that gradual change of state
verbs are not always telic. Unlike punctual change of state verbs like
explodera ‘explode’, verbs like gulna ‘turn yellow’ or växa ‘grow’ do
not carry a res feature; see the structures in (6:43), where the suffix -na
lexicalizes a proc head that takes an adjectival small clause complement
(represented as XP).
(6:43)
a.
b.
c.
Den gulnar.
it
yellows
‘It turns yellow.’
[procP den -na [XP den gul]]
Den växer.
it
grows
‘It grows.’
[procP den växer [XP]]
Den exploderar.
it
explodes
‘It explodes.’
[procP den exploderar [resP den exploderar]]
204
Since punctual change of state verbs like explodera ‘explode’ and
BECOME have res features, they are incompatible with for-adverbials,
unlike gradual change of state verbs like växa ‘gulna’ (see further
section 6.2.2 below); consider the difference between svalna ‘cool’ and
bli sval ‘become cool’ in (6:44).141 An adjective in the comparative
form does not affect telicity; see (6:45).
(6:44)
a.
b.
Den svalnar i flera timmar/på en timme.
it
cools for several hours/in an hour
‘It is cooling for several hours/in an hour.’
Den blir
sval *i flera timmar/på en timme
it
becomes cool for several hours/in an hour
‘It becomes cool *for several hours/in an hour.’
Den blir
svalare *i flera timmar/på en timme.
it
becomes cooler for several hours/in an hour
‘It becomes cooler *for several hours/in an hour.’
(6:45)
This difference between gradual change of state verbs like grow (which
lack a res feature) and punctual change of state verbs like BECOME
(which have a res feature) will be of some importance in chapters 7 and
8 below. On this account, the group of verbs that we call unaccusative
cannot be characterized as obligatorily telic, or as intransitive verbs that
carry a res feature.
There is reason to assume that unergative verbs like dance and laugh
are not only possibly transitive, but always involve a transitive structure
(see e.g. Bobaljik 1993 and references cited there). Hale & Keyser
(1993a) suggest that the difference between unergative and transitive
verbs like read is that the complement incorporates into or conflates
with the verbal head in the former but not in the latter case (cf. e.g.
Harley 2005, Platzack 2006b); dance and laugh can be paraphrased as
do a dance or make a laugh, respectively. The nominal element can be
realized as a cognate object in the complement of the verb, as in the
examples in (6:46).
(6:46)
141
a.
Hon skrattade ett elakt
she laughed a
mean
‘She laughed a mean laugh.’
skratt.
laugh
This implies that the meaning of the verb BECOME is not ‘process’, but rather
transition, and it does therefore not correspond to the suffix -na of Swedish deadjectival verbs. The analysis of BECOME is complicated by the fact that in some
respects it behaves like a copula.
205
b.
c.
Han dansade en arg
och krigisk
he danced an angry and warlike
‘He danced an angry and warlike dance.’
Han sjöng ett par
verser på
he sang
a
couple verses on
‘He sang a couple of verses of a song.’
dans.
dance
en
a
sång.
song
Unergative verbs behave like the corresponding transitive verbs with
regard to telicity, as observed by Harley (2005). Transitive verbs like eat
are, as noted above, telic or atelic depending on the Rheme object,
which serves to measure out the event; a mass object gives an atelic predicate, while a quantized DP yields a telic reading. Unergative verbs related to mass nouns are in a parallel way atelic (in the absence of further
modification), whereas unergatives connected to a countable noun are
telic; cf. blöda ‘bleed’ and föla ‘foal’ in (6:47) and äta ‘eat’ in (6:48)
(and see further Harley 2005).142 As we saw above, the properties of deadjectival verbs like strengthen in a similar way depend on the properties of the adjective on which the verb is based.
(6:47)
a.
b.
(6:48)
a.
b.
Hästen
blöder.
the.horse bleeds
‘The horse is bleeding.’
Hästen
fölar.
the.horse foals
‘The horse is foaling.’
⇒
≠>
Hästen
äter hö.
⇒
the.horse eats hay
‘The horse is eating hay.’
Hästen
äter ett äpple. ≠>
the.horse eats an apple
‘The horse is eating an apple.’
Hästen
har blött.
the.horse has bled
‘The horse has bled.’
Hästen
har fölat.
the.horse has foaled
‘The horse has foaled.’
Hästen
har ätit
hö.
the.horse has eaten hay
‘The horse has eaten hay.’
Hästen
har ätit ett äpple.
the.horse has eaten an apple
‘The horse has eaten an apple.’
Note that this means that neither unaccusative verbs nor unergative
verbs can be characterized in terms of (a)telicity; certain unaccusative
verbs (e.g. grow) are not inherently telic, while certain unergative verbs
(e.g. foal) are. I return to the distinction between the groups of verbs in
chapter 7.
142
Harley (2005) accounts for semelfactives in a similar way: she assumes that the
properties of the incorporated element give semelfactives a punctual interpretation.
Semelfactives behave like unergative verbs in the respects relevant here.
206
6.2.2. (Un)boundedness in Swedish
The criteria that are employed to distinguish telic from atelic predicates
often relate to simultaneity or sequentiality, or they involve durative
adverbials (as in e.g. (6:42) and (6:44) above). However, these tests are
not independent of the temporal anchoring of the eventuality, but tend to
pick out a combination of Aktionsart and aspect. Here, (a)telicity is
taken to relate to the internal structure of eventualities and to be in principle independent of temporal anchoring. While spatial or causal relations are established in the verb phrase, time is introduced by Voice,
Aspect and Tense (see chapter 3 above). Hence, even if unbounded
aspect can remove the conception of endpoint by having an assertion
time that lies within the event time (or by focusing on a subpart of the
event time), it does not make a telic eventuality atelic. Similarly, bounded aspect can add the conception of a temporal boundary, but it does not
make an atelic eventuality telic.
Consider the examples in (6:39) again (repeated below):
(6:49)
a.
b.
Vi badade (på en kvart).
we bathed in a quarter
‘We bathed (in fifteen minutes).’
Vi badade (i en kvart).
we bathed for a quarter
‘We bathed (for fifteen minutes).’
(SAG 1999, 4:326)
The eventuality bada ‘bathe’ is homogeneous; there is no culmination
involved, and the present (progressive) therefore entails the perfect; see
(6:50).
(6:50)
Vi badar. ⇒
we bathe
‘We are bathing.’
Vi har badat (en stund redan)
we have bathed a while already
‘We have bathed (for a while already).’
Hence, (6:49a) cannot state that the event of bathing culminated in 15
minutes; instead, it conveys that there is an eventuality of bathing
contained within a temporal interval of fifteen minutes. In other words,
(6:49a) is an example of an atelic event with bounded aspect. The example in (6:49b), on the other hand, has unbounded aspect and states
that the eventuality of bathing was (at least) 15 minutes long.
Also telic events are compatible with both in-adverbials and foradverbials, depending on aspect; consider the examples in (6:51) which
207
involve the same telic event of reading a book but differ with regard to
aspect.
(6:51)
a.
b.
Han satt och läste en bok i
en
he sat and read a
book for an
‘He sat reading a book for an hour.’
Han läste en bok på en timme.
he read a
book in
an hour
‘He read a book in an hour.’
timme.
hour
We can assume that Swedish in-adverbials specify an event time that is
included in the assertion time, independently of whether the event is
telic or not; the examples in (6:52), which differ in telicity, can both be
represented as in (6:53) where + represents the event time (specified by
the in-adverbial) and the square brackets the assertion time. In other
words, in-adverbials test for bounded aspect and not telicity.
(6:52)
a.
b.
(6:53)
Vi badade på en kvart.
we bathed in
a quarter
‘We bathed in fifteen minutes.’
Han läste en bok på en timme.
he read a
book in
an hour
‘He read a book in an hour.’
———— [—++++++++—]———S→
For-adverbials, on the other hand, appear to be ambiguous: they either
specify the event time or the assertion time.143 In the former case, they
require unbounded aspect. In the latter case, they can be combined with
an in-adverbial, as in (6:54).144 For-adverbials can therefore only be
143
There are instances where also an in-adverbial specifies the duration of the
assertion time; consider (i).
(i)
På
hela
dagen lyssnade han bara i
in
whole the.day listened
he only for
‘The whole day, he only listened for ten minutes.’
tio
ten
minuter.
minutes
Swedish in-adverbials therefore seem to specify a non-homogenous temporal interval (either the event time or the assertion time). However, examples like (i) seem to
be rather restricted, and they will not be discussed further here.
144 Examples like (6:54) express indefinite iteration of the eventuality. It is well
known that different kinds of adverbs of frequency or iteration have different effects
on the aspectual interpretation. Compare (ia) with the adverbial varje dag ‘every
day’ and (ib) with the adverbial två gånger ‘twice’.
208
used to test for unbounded aspect with telic predicates, and for atelicity
with bounded predicates.
I
en vecka åt
han lunch på några
for a
week
ate he lunch in
some
‘For a week he ate lunch in a couple of minutes.’
(6:54)
minuter.
minutes
It is possible to find examples in Swedish where telic predicates have
unbounded aspect without having any specific morphological marking.
Consider the examples in (6:55) and (6:56), where a contextually given
interruption makes an unbounded reading completely natural.145
Först läste hon den boken
first read she that the.book
en annan
bok i en
a
different book for an
färdigt
en enda bok.)
finished a single book
(6:55)
i
en timme, sedan läste hon
for an hour then
read she
timme. (Hon läser
aldrig
hour
she reads never
(i) a.
Han sprang tre kilometer varje dag i
tre veckor.
he
ran
three kilometres every day for three weeks
‘He ran three kilometres every day for three weeks.’
b.
Han sprang tre kilometer två gånger på två veckor/*i två veckor.
he
ran
three kilometres two times in two weeks/for two weeks
‘He ran three kilometres twice in three weeks/*for two weeks.’
145 While an unbounded reading is often natural with telic predicates like läsa en
bok ‘read a book’, it is more marked when there is a quantized Path present; the
examples in (i) are degraded (disregarding the iterative reading).
(i) a.
??
b.
??
Han springer fortfarande en kilometer. (Det verkar ta
he
runs
still
a
kilometre it
seems take
‘He is still running a kilometre. (It seems to take time.)’
Han sprang en kilometer i
tio minuter.
he
ran
a
kilometre for ten minutes
‘He was running a kilometre for ten minutes.’
tid.)
time
The problem might be that the kilometre is not identified independently of the
running in the examples in (i). In fact, the examples in (ii) are fine.
(ii) a.
b.
Han springer fortfarande sin
kilometer. (Det verkar ta
tid.)
he
runs
still
POSS.REFL kilometre it
seems take time
‘He is still running his kilometre. (It seems to take time.)’
Han sprang sin
kilometer i tio minuter, (sedan gav han upp).
he
ran
POSS.REFL kilometre for ten minutes then gave he up
‘He was running his kilometre for ten minutes, then he gave up.’
There is therefore nothing intrinsic about a quantized Path that excludes unbounded
aspect.
209
‘First she was reading that book for an hour, then she was reading a
different book for an hour. (She never finishes a single book.)’
In a similar way, (6:56) can have either a reading where the main clause
event is simultaneous with the when-clause event, or a sequential reading (where the when-clause event precedes the matrix event). A simultaneous interpretation is incompatible with bounded aspect; cf. examples
in (6:57) (and see e.g. Smith 1991).
(6:56)
Hon åt
en smörgås när jag ringde.
she ate a
sandwich when I
called
‘She ate a sandwich when I called.’
‘She was eating a sandwich when I called.’
(Simultaneous or sequential)
(6:57)
Hon åt
upp smörgåsen
när jag
she ate up the.sandwich when I
‘She ate up the sandwich when I called.’
(Sequential)
ringde.
called
Notably, modification by fortfarande ‘still’ is possible only with unbounded aspect; consider the examples in (6:58) (iterative readings are
disregarded).146 As we will see below, verbs like arrive are necessarily
bounded in Swedish.
(6:58)
a.
Han läser
fortfarande samma
artikel. (Det verkar ta
tid.)
he reads still
the.same paper it
seems take time
‘He is still reading the same paper. (It seems to take time.)’
b. * Båten ankommer fortfarande till bryggan.
the.boat arrives
still
to
the.wharf
Adverbs meaning still are restricted to imperfective morphology in languages with morphological aspect, as well. In Greek, for example, the
adverb akomi ‘still’ is compatible with imperfective verbs, but not with
perfective marking (Alexiadou 1997:89).
As pointed out above, atelic predicates can have a bounded reading in
Swedish. Typically, this is possible when the eventuality expresses a
task or activity that has contextually known temporal boundaries; that is,
146
Also an example like (i) is grammatical, but only on an iterative or dispositional
reading.
(i)
Han läser
fortfarande en artikel på
he
reads still
a
paper in
‘He is still able to read a paper in an hour’
en
an
timme.
hour
210
bounded aspect is possible with a reading that ‘a job is done’.147 The examples in (6:59a–b), which typically express every-day events or household tasks with known temporal boundaries, are unmarked on a bounded
reading; (6:59c) requires more imagination, but is perfectly fine given
the right context.
(6:59)
a.
b.
c.
Jag vattnade blommorna på två minuter.
I
watered
the.flowers in
two minutes
‘I watered the flowers in two minutes.’
Jag åt
lunch på en timme.
I
ate lunch in
an hour.
‘I ate lunch in an hour.’
Jag klappade katten på ett par
minuter.
I
petted
the.cat in
a
couple minutes
‘I petted the cat in a couple of minutes.’
Stative verbs, on the other hand, generally require unbounded aspect independently of context; a temporal boundary presupposes a change or
transition, and bounded aspect therefore forces an inchoative reading on
examples like (6:60).
(6:60)
a.
b.
Jag gillade henne på bara några minuter.
I
liked
her
in
only some minutes
‘I liked her within only a few minutes.’
Hon förstod
frågan
på ett ögonblick.
she understood the.question in
a
moment
‘She understood the question in a moment.’
When the verb phrase is quantified with an adverbial like en gång
‘once’, the bounded reading becomes less restricted; consider (6:61). In
(6:61b), an in-adverbial is only possible in the presence of an adverbial
of iteration.
(6:61)
a.
b.
147
Hon klappade katten fyra gånger på en timme.
she petted
the.cat four times in
an hour
‘She petted the cat four times in an hour.’
Hon skrattade #(tio gånger) på en timme.
she laughed ten times
in
an hour
‘She laughed #(ten times) in an hour.’
Note that a temporal boundary is not the same thing as a telos. In reality, most
eventualities have temporal boundaries (at least all stage-level predicates do). This
does not necessarily mean that these boundaries are specified or contextually known.
211
What is important here is that, depending on context, both bounded and
unbounded readings are possible in Swedish, independently of the Aktionsart of the eventuality.148 In other words, sentences are ambiguous in
the absence of specified aspectual morphology (and context); the verbal
morphology in Swedish is underspecified as to the relation between the
assertion time and the event time.149 This ambiguity is retained in the
perfect; also telic events can therefore have a universal reading, at least
marginally; see (6:62) which is grammatical (although it requires some
emphasis on the fact that the event has not culminated).
(6:62)
Jag har läst den här dumma artikeln sedan
I
have read this here stupid paper since
i morse.
(Jag verkar aldrig bli
klar.)
this.morning I
seem
never become finished
‘I have been reading this stupid paper since this morning. (I never
seem to finish it.)’
There are, however, some lexical restrictions. As noted, stative verbs are
obligatorily unbounded. Moreover, not all telic verbs allow an unbounded reading; verbs that express an instantaneous transition (i.e. Vendler’s
1967 achievements) do not. Disregarding iterative readings or interpretations where the adverbial modifies the target state, the examples in
(6:63) and (6:64) are all ungrammatical independently of context (disregarding the reading where the adverbial specifies the duration of the
target state).150
148
Tonne (2001) comes to the same conclusion in a study of progressives in
Norwegian.
149 This means that aspect in Swedish is not neutral in the sense of Smith (1991) or
Demirdache & Uribe-Etxebarria (2007, 2008). The latter authors assume that the
assertion time is identical with the event time (through binding) in the absence of
morphology; this would mean that all telic events necessarily had bounded aspect (if
the event time gives the duration of the entire complex event). Note that I am not
disputing that telicity and boundedness or atelicity and unboundedness often go
hand in hand; they clearly do, and we can assume that the assertion time and the
event time often coincide in the unmarked case. Swedish has different means of
adding or removing a telos (particularly involving particles) that tend to make the
one or the other aspectual reading highly preferred, or even obligatory (see below).
For the present purposes, what is crucial is that Aktionsart and aspect can be in
principle independent also in languages like Swedish. Here, I leave the question of
precisely how the event time relates to event structure aside.
150 Something additional must be said about BECOME in eventive passives. In
section 6.2.1 above, I assumed that BECOME has a res feature. With participles of
atelic verbs, BECOME-passives can, however, have an ongoing reading, as in (i).
212
(6:63)
a. * Han blir
glad
i
tio minuter.
he becomes happy for ten minutes
b. * Båten
anländer i
en timme.
the.boat arrives
for an hour
c. * Han vinner i
tio minuter.
he wins
for ten minutes
d. * Olyckan
händer
i
tio minuter.
the.accident happens for ten minutes
(6:64)
a. * Han
he
b. * Han
he
öppnar dörren
i
tio minuter.
opens the.door for ten minutes
tänder
lampan
i
en timme.
turns.on the.lamp for an hour
c. * Han upptäcker problemet
he discovers the.problem
i
for
tio
ten
minuter.
minutes
The expression hålla på ‘keep at, be doing’ yields a progressive reading
with predicates like läsa en bok ‘read a book’ and måla en tavla ‘paint a
picture’; see (6:65).
(6:65)
a.
b.
c.
Han håller på att
he keeps at
to
‘He is reading a book.’
Han håller på att
he keeps at
to
‘He is painting a picture.’
Han håller på att
he keeps at
to
‘He is eating an apple.’
läsa en bok.
read a book
måla en tavla.
paint a picture
äta
eat
ett
an
äpple.
apple
The verbs in (6:63) and (6:64), on the other hand, do not have a progressive reading with hålla på; instead the examples in (6:66) express
that the event is about to happen (much like the corresponding English
progressives); this reading of progressive forms is sometimes referred to
as prospective aspect (cf. Tonne 2001, 2007 for Norwegian). While the
(i)
Hon blev
filmad i
tio minuter.
she became filmed for ten minutes
‘She was being filmed for ten minutes.’
Participles in eventive passives presumably involve an aspectual head which can be
either bounded or unbounded. The for-adverbial is therefore possible due to the
unbounded aspect or Aktionsart of the participle, independently of the fact that the
matrix has bounded aspect.
213
prospective reading is possible also with atelic eventualities, it is only
obligatory with punctual events.151
(6:66)
a.
b.
c.
Han håller på att vinna.
he keeps at
to win
‘He is about to win.’
Han håller på att bli
he keeps at
to
become
‘He is about to become happy.’
Olyckan
håller på att
the.accident kept
at
to
‘The accident is about to happen.’
glad.
happy
hända.
happen
Also with regard to the temporal sequencing in sentences that include a
when-clause with an instantaneous event, verbs like öppna ‘open’ or bli
‘become’ behave differently from läsa ‘read’ or paint ‘måla’; the former, but not the latter, are incompatible with a reading where the main
clause event is simultaneous with the event of the when-clause; cf.
(6:67) and (6:68).
(6:67)
a.
b.
När
Frida kom
hem,
blev
Peter
when Frida came home became Peter
‘When Frida came home, Peter became happy.’
(Sequential)
När
Frida kom hem,
öppnade Peter
when Frida came home opened
Peter
‘When Frida came home, Peter opened the door.’
(Sequential)
glad.
happy
dörren.
the.door
151
I include also öppna ‘open’ among these verbs; consider (i) which is degraded
also in a context where the opening of the door is difficult and can take time.
(i)
* Han
he
öppnar dörren
opens the.door
i
for
tio
ten
minuter.
minutes
The inchoative öppna sig ‘open oneself’, on the other hand, is not necessarily
bounded; cf. (ii).
(ii)
Knopparna öppnar sig i
tio minuter.
the.buds
opens REFL for ten minutes
‘The buds are opening up for ten minutes.’
A systematic investigation of the aspectual interpretation of anticausatives would
lead too far. We can, however, note that the behaviour of öppna sig seems to be
contrary to what is expected from Folli’s (2002) analysis of the reflexive inchoative
in Italian; Folli assumes that the use of a reflexive clitic depends on the presence of a
resP.
214
(6:68)
a.
b.
När
Frida kom hem,
läste Peter en bok.
when Frida came home read Peter a
book
‘When Frida came home, Peter read a book.’
‘When Frida came home, Peter was reading a book.’
(Sequential or simultaneous)
När
Frida kom hem,
målade Peter en tavla.
when Frida came home painted Peter a
picture
‘When Frida came home, Peter painted a picture.’
‘When Frida came home, Peter was painting a picture.’
(Sequential or simultaneous)
For punctual verbs like öppna ‘open’ and vinna ‘win’, the restriction on
unbounded readings is expected: a punctual event time cannot include or
partly overlap with the assertion time interval. However, also certain
constructions with verb + particle are aspectually restricted in a similar
way, even though they do not express punctual events. In (6:69), for
example, modification by a for-adverbial or fortfarande is impossible.
With a when-clause, only a sequential interpretation is available; see
(6:70).152
152
Verbs with Goal PPs behave in a similar way; see the examples in (i), which are
degraded (at least without context), and (ii) which only has a sequential reading.
(i) a.
b.
(ii)
?
Han reste
till Stockholm i
tre timmar.
he
travelled to Stockholm for three hours
‘He was travelling to Stockholm for three hours.’
?
Han reser
fortfarande till Stockholm.
he
travels still
to
Stockholm
När Frida kom hem
reste
Peter till
when Frida came home travelled Peter to
‘When Frida came home, Peter went to Stockholm.’
(Sequential)
Stockholm.
Stockholm
However, unlike the constructions with verb + particle, the achievement of the goal
is not necessarily asserted in examples with a change of location verb + a Goal PP;
cf. (iii) and (iv).
(iii)
Han läste ut artikeln, (#men blev
avbruten
så att han
he
read out the.paper but
became interrupted so that he
aldrig blev
klar).
never became finished
‘He finished reading the paper.’
(iv)
Han reste
till Stockholm i
tre timmar, men då tog
he
travelled to
Stockholm for three hours but then took
bensinen
slut,
så
han kom inte dit.
the.gas
finished so he came not there
215
(6:69)
a. * Jag läste ut
artikeln
i
tio minuter.
I
read out the.paper for ten minutes
Intended: ‘I was finishing reading the paper for ten minutes.’
b. * Jag läser fortfarande ut
artikeln.
I
read still
out the.paper
Intended: ‘I am still finishing reading the paper.’
När
Frida kom hem läste Peter ut
artikeln.
when Frida came home read Peter out the.paper
‘When Frida came home Peter finished reading the paper.’
(Sequential)
(6:70)
I suggest that all subeventualities in the verb phrase are anchored to time
in Swedish, i.e. that they must lie at least partly within the assertion time
interval. This means that the transition to the target state is asserted in
the presence of resP; verbs like öppna ‘open’ and vinna ‘win’ as well as
particle verbs like läsa ut ‘finish reading’ have resP in their structure
and are therefore obligatorily bounded or resultative (in the absence of
morphological marking). In the absence of resP, on the other hand, the
time of the process can lie partly or completely within the assertion
time, and both bounded and unbounded readings are available.
However, with durative events like läsa ut ‘finish reading’, an unbounded or progressive reading only appears to be unavailable in the absence of aspectual morphology. Unlike instantaneous events, läsa ut can
have an ongoing reading with hålla på att ‘be doing’ and in pseudocoordinations; see (6:71).
(6:71)
a.
b.
Han håller på att läsa ut
artikeln.
he keeps at
to
read out the.paper
‘He is finishing the paper.’
Han sitter och läser
ut
artikeln.
he sits and reads out the.paper
‘He is sitting finishing reading the paper.’
Given a context, for-adverbials and fortfarande are possible as in (6:72).
Similarly, the example in (6:73) has a simultaneous interpretation.
(6:72)
a.
Han satt och skrev klart
i
tre timmar.
he sat and wrote finished for three hours
‘He was sitting finishing writing for three hours.’
‘He was travelling to Stockholm for three hours, but ran out of gas, so he
never got there.’
216
b.
(6:73)
Han sitter fortfarande och skriver klart
he sits still
and writes finished
‘He is still sitting finishing writing the paper.’
artikeln.
the.paper
När
Frida kom hem,
satt Peter och läste ut artikeln.
when Frida came home sat Peter and read out the.paper
‘When Frida came home, Peter was sitting finishing reading the
paper.’
(Simultaneous)
The generalization seems to be that in the absence of aspectual morphology, all parts of the verb phrase are anchored to time in Swedish; the
available aspectual readings therefore in some respects depend on the
composition of the verb phrase. In the presence of imperfective morphology, on the other hand, durative events can have an unbounded reading
regardless of the presence/absence of resP, whereas punctual events
cannot.
6.2.3. Summary
I have assumed that the verb phrase is the domain for spatial construal;
it is anchored in time by elements above initP. This means that Aktionsart and outer aspect are in principle independent. Following Ramchand
(2008a), I have assumed that there is no single feature or element
directly responsible for telicity, but that telicity depends on the properties of the complement of proc. Since resP introduces a target state it
always provides a telos. We can expect that the target state reading of
participles is possible only in the presence of resP.
In addition, the presence of resP affects aspectual interpretation; in
the absence of imperfective morphology, an unbounded reading is
excluded with events that involve resP (e.g. with anlända ‘arrive’ or äta
upp ‘eat up’). Other predicates are compatible with both bounded and
unbounded readings also in the absence of specified aspectual morphology. The possibility of fortfarande ‘still’ with telic predicates can be
taken to be criterial for unbounded aspect, whereas in-adverbials are
indicative of bounded aspect. Bounded eventualities have a sequential
reading in relation to a punctual event in a when-clause, whereas unbounded eventualities are interpreted as simultaneous with the whenclause event.
217
In the next section, I sketch how the aspectual interpretation of resultant state participles can be derived on the basis of the account of tense–
aspect outlined above.
6.3. The aspectual interpretation of resultant state participles
In the following, I argue that resultant state participles have bounded
aspect, while other stative participles lack independent aspectual value.
The focus in this section is on resultant state participles, since these play
a central part in the interpretation of the older Swedish data investigated
in chapter 5; I return to other stative participles in more detail in chapter
8. However, in order to properly distinguish the resultant state participles, we need to make a distinction between three different kinds of stative participles, and not only between target states and resultant states.
6.3.1. Three different stative participles
In section 6.1 above, I introduced a distinction between target state and
resultant state participles (from Kratzer 2000), and noted that resultant
state participles can be formed from most eventive verbs, including
atelic verbs like klappa ‘pet’.
Atelic events are also more generally possible in stative passives in
Swedish, but with a progressive reading; cf. the examples in (6:74)
which all express that the participial event is ongoing.
(6:74)
a.
b.
c.
Han var jagad av kronofogden.
he was chased by the.enforcement.officer
‘He was being chased by the enforcement officer.’
Han är förföljd
av polisen.
he is persecuted by the.police
‘He was being persecuted by the police.’
Vagnen
är dragen av vita hästar.
the.chariot is pulled by white horses
‘The chariot is being pulled by white horses.’
I henceforth refer to these participles as progressive state participles.
They have an unbounded interpretation; the example in (6:75) only
allows for a reading where the event of the when-clause eventuality is
temporally simultaneous with the matrix eventuality.
218
När han rundade sista kurvan,
var han jagad av
when he rounded last the.curve was he chased by
tre andra löpare.
three other runners
‘When he rounded the last curve, he was being chased by three other
runners.’
(Simultaneous)
(6:75)
Like target state participles, progressive state participles can be modified
by fortfarande ‘still’; see (6:76).
(6:76)
a.
Han är fortfarande jagad av kronofogden.
he is still
chased by the.enforcement.officer
‘He is still being chased by the enforcement officer.’
Vagnen
är fortfarande dragen av vita
hästar.
the.chariot is still
pulled by white horses
‘The chariot is still being pulled by white horses.’
b.
Progressive state participles have verbal properties and are compatible
with agent adverbials, as in the examples in (6:74). They do, however,
not convey anteriority or resultativity in any sense.
Hence, also atelic verbs can occur in two kinds of stative passives:
resultant state or progressive state passives. In fact, though the progressive reading is primary, the examples in (6:74) are ambiguous. In
e.g. a context where an actor has to be chased first by wolves and then
by tigers, the director could possibly utter the resultant state passive in
(6:77).153
(6:77)
?
Han är redan jagad av vargar. (Det är dags att ta
in
he is already chased by wolves it
is time to
take in
tigrarna.)
the.tigers
‘He has already been chased by wolves. (It is time to bring in the
tigers.)’
In other cases, it is the progressive state reading that is secondary. For
example, the resultant state passive in (6:78a) is more natural than the
progressive state passive in (6:78b). Which reading is primary presumably depends on real world knowledge as well as on context.
153
A HAVE-perfect would be the unmarked expression in (6:77). Also many of the
examples of progressive state passives are slightly marked; for a progressive present
tense reading, a morphological passive is generally preferred in Swedish.
219
(6:78)
a.
b.
Tröjan
är
redan
använd (två gånger).
the.sweater is
already
used
two times
‘The sweater has already been used (twice).’
Just nu är gungan
använd av Lisa. (Du får vänta på
just now is the.swing used
by Lisa you may wait for
din tur.)
your turn
‘Right now, the swing is being used by Lisa. (You must wait for your
turn.’
Authentic examples of both kinds do, however, occur; see (6:79). The
example in (6:79a) has a resultant state reading, whereas (6:79b) involves a progressive state participle.
(6:79)
a.
b.
typ halva brun-utan-sol [-]
flaskan
är redan använd!
like half
brown-without-sun the.bottle is already used
‘like half the bottle of tan without sun has already been used!’
(Google)
Musiken tas
bort men platsen
är fortfarande
the.music take.PRES.PASS away but the.place is still
använd
used
‘The music is taken away but the place is still being used.’
(Google)
In other words, many verbs can form two kinds of stative participles:
either they form target state participles and resultant state participles, or
progressive state participles and resultant state participles. Verbs that
form progressive state participles do not form target state participles,
and the other way around. Hence, while the possibility of target state
and progressive state readings can be assumed to depend on the
structure of the verb phrase, the resultant state reading apparently does
not. In chapter 8 below, I argue that target state and progressive state
participles lack an independent aspectual value; their aspectual interpretation instead depends on the structure of the verb phrase in combination with the properties of the copula. In the next section, I consider
the aspect of resultant state participles.
6.3.2. The aspect of resultant state participles
As we have seen, resultant state participles are not as lexically restricted
as either target state or progressive state participles. The only group of
220
transitive verbs that is systematically unavailable in resultant state
passives is stative verbs; see (6:80).
(6:80)
a. * Svaret
är vetat.
the.answer is known
b. * Den är känd
två gånger.
it
is known two times
c. * Han är omtyckt flera
gånger.
he is liked
several times
On occasion, also a stative verb can marginally form a resultant state
participle, but this forces an inchoative reading; cf. the progressive state
participle in (6:81a) and the resultant state participle in (6:81b).
(6:81)
a.
b.
?
Huset
är fortfarande bebott.
the.house is still
lived.in
‘Somebody still lives in the house.’
Huset
är bebott på en timme.
the.house is lived.in in
an hour
‘Somebody will live in the house in an hour.’
(inchoative)
As noted, the availability of the resultant state reading can vary depending on real world knowledge and context. In section 6.2.2 above,
we saw that this was the case also with atelic verbs with bounded aspect;
consider the contrast between (6:82a), which is perfectly natural, and
(6:82b), which requires a specific context (cf. also the examples in
(6:59) and (6:61) above).
(6:82)
a.
b.
Han använde den nya tröjan
fyra gånger på
he used
the new the.sweater four times in
‘He used the new sweater four times in a week.’
Hon klappade katten på ett ögonblick.
she petted
the.cat in
a
moment
‘She petted the cat in a moment.’
en vecka.
a week
Resultant state participles of atelic verbs are compatible with inadverbials; cf. (6:83).
(6:83)
På bara två minuter var katten klappad.
in
only two minutes was the.cat petted
‘In only two minutes the cat had been petted.’
221
We can therefore assume that resultant state participles may involve
bounded aspect. The adverb fortfarande ‘still’ is excluded in resultant
state passives because it requires unbounded aspect.
Now, I noted in section 6.1 that resultant state participles actually can
have two readings; cf. the examples in (6:84a) and (6:84b).
(6:84)
a.
b.
Frida är (*fortfarande) hemkommen.
Frida is still
home.come
‘Frida has (*still) come home.’
Frida är både hemkommen och utgången. (Nu vet jag
Frida is both home.come and out.gone now know I
inte var
hon är.)
not where she is
‘Frida has both come home and gone out. (Now I don’t know where
she is.)’
Although the participle hemkommen ‘come home’ is never compatible
with the adverbial fortfarande, examples like (6:84a) express that the
target state of the event holds at present, like a target state participle. As
we have seen, this is not the only reading; examples like (6:84b) are also
grammatical (but marked or restricted to certain contexts).
We can conclude that resultant state participles either have resultative
aspect (as in (6:84a)) or bounded aspect (as in (6:84b)). Recall that also
perfect participles can have different aspectual values; cf. the resultant
state constructions in (6:84) with the perfects in (6:85); the example in
(6:85a) is a resultative perfect, and (6:85b) is an experiential perfect.
(6:85)
a.
b.
Jag har just tappat glasögonen.
I
have just lost
the.glasses
‘I have just lost my glasses.’
Jag har tappat glasögonen två gånger redan.
I
have lost
the.glasses
two times already
‘I have lost my glasses twice already.’
The resultative reading of resultant state participles is not identical to the
reading of target state participles. Only resultant state participles actually have an aspectual value (see further chapter 8), and only target state
participles allow modification by still. Resultant state participles with
resultative aspect convey that the event has culminated and that the
target state holds at the end of the assertion time, whereas target state
participles assert that the target state holds throughout the assertion
time; the difference can be illustrated as in (6:86), where + represents
the process or transition, × the target state and the square brackets the
222
assertion time. As we will see in chapter 8, target state participles need
not have event implications.
(6:86)
a.
b.
Resultant state participles with resultative aspect:
———— [—++×××]×——→
Target state participles:
———— (++)× [××××××]×——→
Resultant state participles with bounded aspect state that the participial
eventuality lies within the assertion time; see (6:87).
(6:87)
Resultant state participles with bounded aspect:
———— [—++—]——→
We could argue that the differences between Icelandic and Swedish
noted in chapter 5 above reflect the possible values of the aspectual head
of the resultant state participle: in Icelandic, the active construction with
BE necessarily has resultative aspect. Negation by an adverbial meaning
‘never’ and adverbs of frequency and iteration typically require bounded
aspect, and they tend to be incompatible with the resultative perfect; cf.
the resultative perfect in (6:88) and the Icelandic construction with BE
in (6:89), which both disallow an adverb of iteration. As we have seen, a
resultative reading is much preferred with BE also in Swedish.
(6:88)
(6:89)
I have just lost my glasses for the third time/#three times. (Can you
help me look for them?)
* Jón er þrisvar
farinn
John is three.times gone
(Thráinsson 2007:12)
til
to
Boston.
Boston
The perfect with HAVE + participle, on the other hand, generally has an
experiential and not a resultative reading in Icelandic; examples like
(6:90) are infelicitous on a resultative reading. In other words, Icelandic
perfect participles of eventive verbs typically have bounded aspect.
(6:90)
# Ég hef týnt lyklunum núna.
I
have lost the.keys
now
‘I have lost the keys now.’
There is, however, a problem with an account along these lines. Since
presumably there is no single feature or element directly responsible for
telicity, and since telicity can depend on context, it is unclear what it
223
means to say that a resultative aspect selects for telic events. Instead, we
could assume that resultative aspect requires the presence of resP in the
verb phrase. If the construction with BE + active participle was restricted to resultative aspect, it would accordingly be ungrammatical
with gradual change of state verbs, since these lack a res feature. This is
not the case; cf. the example with gulna ‘turn yellow’ in (6:91) below
(and see further chapter 7).
(6:91)
Grasið
er gulnað.
the.grass is yellowed
‘The grass has turned yellow.’
Pancheva (2003) states that although resultative aspect in Bulgarian
(which is marked with perfective morphology) always yields a telic
reading, it is not restricted to telic underlying predicates. One possibility
is that in resultant state participles, participial morphology can identify
the res head, and therefore induce telicity. We might then expect
participial morphology to have the effects of particles (which typically
associate with res). Another possibility is that bounded aspect places the
process or transition within the assertion time, and that the strength of
the inference that the target state holds depends on the aspectual oppositions in the language; this is more in line with what Ramchand (2008b)
suggests to account for the interpretation of perfective morphology in
Russian. Icelandic differs more generally from Swedish with regard to
aspectual morphology. As in English, progressive morphology is required for an ongoing reading in the present tense, and Present-Day Icelandic also has a specific perfective construction (see below section 6.4).
Finally, we could assume that the structure of resultant state participles
lacks AspP in Icelandic, but not in Swedish; since adverbs of frequency
and iteration presumably relate to Asp, they would therefore be excluded. This would mean that the participial event time is directly
related to the time of BE in Icelandic, but not in Swedish.
In the following, I will assume that resultant state participles always
have AspP in their structure, and that this distinguishes them from target
state and progressive state participles. Instead, I tentatively suggest that
the difference between Swedish and Icelandic depends on how the event
time is related to participial assertion time, but I leave the implementation aside. To get further, we would need to look closer at precisely
how the event time is established in relation to the (often complex)
event structure and how it is anchored to the assertion time and to the
time of BE, considering also cross-linguistic data. Independently of how
the difference between Swedish and Icelandic is understood, it is worth
224
noting that Icelandic is more restricted than Swedish with regard to
adverbial modification, and not the other way around; as will be seen in
chapter 7, the construction with BE is lexically restricted in Present-Day
Swedish but not in Icelandic, and it is used less frequently in Swedish
than in Icelandic.
6.3.3. Temporal adverbials and BE
As we have seen, there are reasons to assume that past participles are
tenseless (cf. e.g. Egerland 2002). I have assumed that this is the reason
why constructions with BE + past participle are not possible in past
counterfactuals. In chapter 10, I also suggest that the absence of T accounts for the difference between perfect participles with regard to case,
and for the difference in inflection. In this section, I consider the possibility of certain kinds of temporal modification of past participles.
Although resultant state participles are tenseless, they convey anteriority; in this respect, they resemble perfects. Since participles with resultative aspect assert that the target state of the participial event holds at
the end point of the assertion time; the process or transition is always
anterior to the target state. Also participles with bounded aspect convey
anteriority; as bounded aspect places the entire event time within the
assertion time, the transition must take place before the end point of the
assertion time. The question is how the participial assertion time relates
to the time of the matrix clause.
In Present-Day Swedish constructions with BE + a participle of a telic
verb, a temporal adverbial normally states the time when the target state
holds. Compare the stative passive with BE in (6:92a) and the eventive
BECOME-passive in (6:92b). Since the stative passive in (6:92a) asserts
that the target state holds at two o’clock, the time of the process subevent (E) necessarily precedes two o’clock. In the eventive passive in
(6:92b), on the other hand, the locking takes place at two o’clock.
(6:92)
a.
b.
De var utelåsta
klockan
två.
they were out.locked the.clock two
‘They had been looked out at two o’clock.’
E(locking out) < 2 o’clock
De blev
utelåsta
klockan
två.
they became out.locked the.clock two
‘They were locked out at two o’clock.’
E(locking out) = 2 o’clock
225
Occasionally, a temporal adverbial can specify the time of the process or
transition also in the passive with BE; SAG (1999, 4:394) gives examples like those in (6:93). Note that the temporal modification is compatible with a resultative reading (depending on the participial predicate).
(6:93)
a.
b.
När
är
du född?
when are you born
‘When were you born?’
Bröden
är
bakade igår.
the.breads are baked yesterday
‘The bread was baked yesterday.’
(SAG 1999, 4:394)
Temporal adverbials could apparently modify the time of the transition
or process in the construction with BE also in older Swedish; see (6:94)
(and cf. Johannisson 1945:108).154 As in Present-Day Swedish, a past
time adverbial is possible also when the auxiliary BE is in the present
tense.
(6:94)
a.
b.
Den 19 Augustii är Enke-Hertiginnan […] bortrester
ifrån
the 19 August is Widow-Duthcess
away.travelled from
Stocholm
Stockholm
‘The Widow Dutchess left Stockholm 19 August.’
(Karl XI Almanacka *1655:246; from Johannisson 1945:109)
krusen […] är klockan
10 inkomin i staden
idag
Krusen
is the.clock 10 in.come
in the.town today
‘Krusen came in to town today at ten o’clock’
(Horn *1629:62f.)
Not all participles in the complement of a present tense BE are equally
compatible with past time adverbials. Progressive state participles and
target state participles are not; see the examples in (6:95) and (6:96).
(6:95)
a. * Han är jagad av
he is chased by
b. * Vagnen
är dragen
the.chariot is pulled
(6:96)
a. * Väskorna är
the.bags are
154
kronofogden
igår.
the.enforcement.officer yesterday
av vita
hästar igår.
by white horses yesterday
fortfarande packade igår.
still
packed yesterday
In (6:94b), the positional adverbial klockan 10 ‘at ten o’clock’ refers to a past
time within the interval set up by the adverbial idag ‘today’.
226
b. * Däcken är
fortfarande pumpade
the.tires are still
pumped.up
igår.
yesterday
Since positional past time adverbials always relate to the assertion time,
this restriction is expected; progressive state and target state participles
lack an AspP, and the only assertion time in examples like (6:95) and
(6:96) lies in the present.
Hence, the only stative participles that allow positional past time
adverbials are resultant state participles; see the passive participles in
(6:97) and the active participles in (6:98), and cf. (6:99) which shows
that none of the participles is compatible with fortfarande.
(6:97)
a.
b.
(6:98)
a.
b.
(6:99)
Det här brödet
är bakat
this here the.bread is baked
‘This bread was baked yesterday.’
Den här boken
är skriven
this here the.book is written
‘This book was written in 1982.’
igår.
yesterday
1982.
1982
Han är hitflyttad
från Stockholm i förra veckan.
he is here.moved from Stockholm in last week
‘He moved here from Stockholm last week.’
Han är hemkommen för en timme sedan.
he is home.come for an hour
ago
‘He came home an hour ago.’
a. * Det
this
b. * Den
this
c. * Han
he
d. * Han
he
här brödet
är fortfarande bakat.
here the.bread is still
baked
här boken
är fortfarande skriven.
here the.book is still
written
är fortfarande hitflyttad
från Stockholm.
is fortfarande here.moved from Stockholm
är fortfarande hemkommen.
is still
home.come
Since positional past time adverbials relate to the assertion time (and not
the speech time), the grammaticality of examples like (6:97) and (6:98)
above need not be taken as evidence for a T in the structure of the participle. In fact, the adverbial modification possible with (active or passive) resultant state participles in Swedish is crucially different from the
modification which is licit in perfects: as we have seen, present perfects
with HAVE do not allow positional past time adverbials; cf. (6:93)
above and the corresponding perfects in (6:100).
227
(6:100) a. * När
har du fötts?
when have you born.PASS
Intended: ‘When were you born?’
b. * Han har bakat brödet
igår.
he has baked the.bread yesterday
Intended: ‘I baked the bread yesterday.’
It can be noted that the possibility of past positional adverbials does not
only make resultant state constructions different from perfects, but also
from the tenseless infinitivals that I discussed briefly in chapter 3
(section 3.6.1) above. Among other things, tenseless infinitivals can be
characterized by disallowing an adverbial with a temporal reference that
is not overlapping with the matrix tense; cf. (6:101).
(6:101)
* Han börjar
he begin.PRES
att
to
ha stekt
have fried
en
a
fisk igår.
fish yesterday
In chapter 3, I assumed that tenseless infinitivals have an unvalued T in
their structure, which is valued by the matrix T; the non-finite perfect in
(6:101) therefore behaves like a present perfect. Past participles, on the
other hand, I have argued are tenseless because they lack a T in their
structure. The possibility of positional past time adverbials with BE in
Swedish suggests that the assertion time of resultant state participles is
free with respect to the matrix assertion time (and does not have to
include or even overlap with the matrix assertion time). In the unmarked
case, the event time of BE gives the time of the target state of the
participial event.
6.3.4. Summary
In the previous chapters, I argued that perfect participles are tensed,
whereas past participles are tenseless. In the previous sections, I made
further distinctions among the past participles. Disregarding eventive
participles, I introduced a distinction between progressive state, target
state and resultant state participles (neither of which is tensed). There is,
as far as I can see, no reason to assume that resultant state participles
literally involve an element that introduces a specific resultant state.
Instead, I assume that resultant state participles have either resultative or
bounded aspect, at least in languages like Swedish, while progressive
state participles and target state participles lack AspP in their structures.
228
I return to their interpretation and to the properties of the participial
stativizer in chapter 8 below.
In the next section, I review how the findings affect an account of BE
in older Swedish, and what the consequences for the understanding of
the development of the perfect tense might be. I also briefly consider the
perfect-like construction with vera búinn að (lit. ‘be finished to’) + infinitive in Present-Day Icelandic and passives with BE in older Swedish.
6.4. Older Swedish BE and Icelandic vera búinn að
In this chapter, I have suggested that the examples with BE + participle
in experiential contexts in older Swedish involve resultant state participles and not perfect participles. Resultant state participles lack tense
but have an aspectual value, and therefore allow e.g. adverbs of iteration
and frequency. In this way, we can account for the examples in (6:102),
as well as the exceptional Norwegian example in (6:103) (= (5:65)
above).
(6:102) a.
b.
(6:103)
mangen snöy är fallen sydhan wi sogoms
many.a snow is fallen since we saw.each.other
‘A lot of snow has fallen since we saw each other.’
(Didrik 15th c.:295; Johannisson 1945:103)
honum ma mang thing vara skeedh
him
may many things be happened
‘many things may have happened to him
(Ivan c. 1303:1999)
er iorð komin þrysvár
undir snúð ok undir snælldu
is earth come three.times under twirl and under distaff
‘the earth has passed a spindle three times’ (i.e., ‘the earth has passed
three times through a woman’s hand.’)
(Gulathings-Lov p. 92; from Johannisson 1945:36)
In Present-Day Swedish, resultant state participles are often marked in
experiential contexts, and they are often only available with a ‘job is
done’-interpretation. We have seen that this is the case also when atelic
finite verbs have bounded aspect (depending partly on real world knowledge). Although the restrictions on adverbial modification appear to be
the same, the construction with BE appears to have been contextually
less restricted in older Swedish.
Given that the extended use of BE with active participles in older
Swedish is to be understood as an extended use of resultant state parti-
229
ciples, we might also expect to find examples of BE-passives in older
Swedish where Present-Day Swedish would have a BECOME-passive
or a morphological passive. I have assumed that the distinction between
target state and resultant state participles applies to passive and active
past participles alike. Without investigating stative passives in the historical material systematically, I have noted a number of older Swedish
examples which suggest that also the use of resultant state passives were
more frequent in older Swedish, and that active and passive participles
with BE go partly hand in hand; a couple of examples are given in
(6:104). The example in (6:104a) involves an adverbial meaning ‘often’,
and (6:104b) has an adverbial meaning ‘many times’. The example in
(6:104c) has an adverbial meaning ‘never’ which negates the existence
of the participial event at any point in time.
(6:104) a.
b.
c.
Aff honum ær mik opta mykith sakt
of
him
is
me often much said
‘much has often been said to me about him’
(Ivan c. 1303:1336)
Konung Cristiern som nu war monge gongor affslagen
king
Christian who now was many times off.beaten
‘King Christian who now had been defeated many times’
(Swart 1560:4)
En lustigare är aldrigh funnen
a
funnier
is never found
‘a funnier one has never been found’
(Messenius I *1579:28)
In fact, Kirri (1975) states that examples with BE + a passive past participle sometimes have the reading of a perfect in older Swedish; he refers
to examples like those in (6:105).
(6:105) a.
b.
Nær domen
war affsagd,
kom Margaretha […] fram
when the.verdict was off.spoken came Margaretha
forward
for
rætten
before the.court
‘When the verdict had been spoken, Margaretha came before the
court’
(Petri tänkebok *1493:261; from Kirri 1975:37)
Nær thetta læset war sade hwar sitt
ther til
when this
read was said each POSS.REFL there to
‘when this had been read, everyone gave his/her comment’
(Petri tänkebok *1493:313; from Kirri 1975:37)
With the present distinctions, nothing excludes that these are resultant
state participles. It would in fact be highly surprising if older Swedish
230
had a temporal auxiliary BE that took a passive participial complement,
when none of the present-day Germanic languages do. We can note that
the context for the examples in (6:105) is typical for resultant state
constructions: the event is planned, and the passive conveys that it is
now over or finished. Kirri (1975:360) also observes an increase in the
use of morphological passives in the 18th century, and a drop in the
frequency of passives with BE; as we will see in the next chapter, this is
around the same time as the construction with BE + active participle
becomes more restricted in Swedish.
Additional support for the assumption that the use of resultant state
participles was extended in older Swedish comes from Present-Day
Icelandic. In Larsson (2009), I observe that Present-Day Icelandic has an
alternation between a perfect with HAVE and a perfect-like construction
which in several respects resembles the alternation between the constructions with HAVE and BE in older Swedish.
Icelandic has sometimes been assumed to have two perfects, one with
HAVE + perfect participle and one with vera búinn að (lit. ‘be finished
to’) + infinitive (see e.g. Jónsson 1992, Wide 2002); cf. (6:106).155 The
two constructions appear to have similar functions, and the distribution
between them varies depending on text type; vera búinn að is more
common in informal texts (see Wide 2002:172ff. and Larsson 2009:71).
(6:106) a.
b.
María hefur bakað köku.
Mary has baked cake
‘Mary has baked a cake.’
María er búin
að baka köku.
Mary is finished to
bake cake
‘Mary has baked a cake.’
(Jónsson 1992:134)
Like the construction with BE, vera búinn að is ungrammatical in past
counterfactuals; see (6:107).
(6:107)
155
* Ef hann
væri búinn
að baka köku í gær,
þá
if
he
were finished
to
bake cake yesterday then
væri nóg
að borða.
were enough to
eat
Intended: ‘If he had baked a cake yesterday, there would have been
enough to eat.’
(Larsson 2009:67)
I follow Jónsson (1992) and gloss vera búinn að as ‘be finished to’, even though
the construction is perfectly compatible with a reading where the event holds at the
reference time.
231
Not all speakers allow modification by aldrei ‘never’ with vera búinn
að, but judgements improve in a context where ‘a job is done’. Similarly, adverbs of frequency and iteration are often possible, but tend to
imply that something has been managed; examples are given in (6:108)
and (6:109) (see further Larsson 2009). I therefore suggest that the construction with vera búinn að is not a perfect, but that it expresses bounded aspect, just like certain resultant state passives do. The construction
involves the resultant state participle búinn ‘finished’.
(6:108)
Ég er
aldrei búin
að nota þetta forrit.
I
am never finished to
use this program
‘I have never used this program.’
(Larsson 2009:74)
(6:109)
Skipið er búið
að blása tvisvar.
the.ship is finished to
whistle twice
‘The ship has whistled twice.’
(Kress 1982:154ff.)
In an impersonal construction, vera búinn að can, in fact, correspond
directly to a resultant state passive in Swedish; both are used e.g. in lists
of things that have been achieved; cf. the examples in (6:110) (from a
corpus of Parliament discussions) to the Swedish resultant state passive
in (6:111).
(6:110)
eftir að búið
er að samþykkja lög
after that finished is to pass
law
‘after a law has been passed’
(Althingi; from Larsson 2009:82)
(6:111)
Lagförslaget är antaget.
the.bill
is passed
‘The bill has been passed.’
As noted, resultant state participles are infrequent in Present-Day
Swedish. In Icelandic, the construction with vera búinn að is, on the
other hand, sometimes preferred, particularly by younger speakers and
in informal contexts. In other words, some speakers of Icelandic choose
a perfect-like expression over the perfect. I suggest that the same was
the case in older Swedish, with regard to HAVE or BE + active participle. Moreover, since resultant state participles are similar to perfects in
many ways, it is plausible that the development of the perfect started by
an extended use of them, much like in Present-Day Icelandic or older
Swedish.
232
6.5. Summary
In this chapter, I have tied the extended use of BE + active participles in
older Swedish to a distinction between two kinds of perfect-like constructions (involving either target state or resultant state participles) and
suggested that the latter may involve bounded aspect, just like experiential perfects do. At the end of the chapter, I showed that a similar distinction can help us account also for the distribution of stative passives
in older Swedish and of vera búinn að + infinitive in Present-Day Icelandic. In chapter 10 below, I explore the possibility that the development of the perfect tense with HAVE started as an increase in the use of
resultant state participles.
On the present account, perfects with HAVE did not replace perfects
with BE in the history of Swedish and English (cf. chapter 5, section 5.6
above). Instead, perfects with HAVE appeared with unaccusative verbs
as soon as HAVE had developed into a perfect auxiliary. In Present-Day
Swedish, the perfect with HAVE is generally preferred to the perfectlike construction with BE, and the construction with BE has also become lexically more restricted. In the next chapter, I turn to the loss of
BE in active perfect-like constructions in Swedish, and in chapter 8, I
further investigate the internal structure of participles.
233
7. The loss of BE
The study of the alternation between HAVE and BE in older Swedish in
the previous chapters has led to the conclusion that older Swedish did
not have perfects with BE. However, we have seen that the construction
with BE + active participle was less restricted in older Swedish than in
Old Norse. In the present-day languages, it is the other way around:
there are cases where the construction with BE is grammatical in Norwegian and Icelandic but not in Swedish; cf. Norwegian in (7:1) and
Swedish in (7:2).
(7:1)
Det er blitt
kaldere.
it
is become colder
‘It has become colder.’
(7:2)
* Det är blivet kallare.
it
is become colder
As we have seen, active participles are, however, not always disallowed
in the complement of BE in Present-Day Swedish; cf. (7:3).
(7:3)
Frida är
hitrest
från Oslo.
Frida is
here.travelled
from Oslo
‘Frida has come here from Oslo.’
In this chapter, I investigate the grammatical change (‘the loss of BE’)
which results in the ungrammaticality of examples like (7:2), and the
relevant difference between the participles in (7:2) and (7:3).
An account of both perfects and perfect-like constructions in many
ways is tied to the distinctions between unaccusative and unergative
verbs. Largely the same groups of verbs that have perfects with BE in
Danish and German have active tenseless participles in the complement
of BE in older Swedish. With the verb phrase structure assumed here,
the group of verbs that I refer to as unaccusatives is not homogeneous; it
includes gradual and punctual change of state verbs like grow and become, telic change of location verbs like arrive and variable behaviour
234
verbs like travel in telic contexts. We can therefore expect mismatches
in the diagnostics for unaccusativity. However, it still needs to be explained why there are diagnostics in the first place, particularly why the
group of verbs that form active participles in prenominal position and in
the complement of BE is cross-linguistically rather stable. Ideally, we
therefore want an analysis of unaccusatives that allows us to make finer
distinctions among the groups of verbs, while keeping with some notion
of unaccusativity that unifies the verbs that e.g. have active participles in
the complement of BE in older Swedish and in Present-Day Danish.
In the present context, there are several motivations for an investigation of the loss of BE. First and foremost, the loss of BE can be viewed
as the final stage in the establishment of the perfect with HAVE. More
generally, a study of the shifts in the alternation of two perfect-type constructions, the perfect with HAVE and the perfect-like construction with
BE, will provide some insight into the progression of the development
of the perfect with HAVE. The emergence of the HAVE-perfect also
involved shifts in the alternation between two perfect-type constructions, the perfect with HAVE and the perfect-like construction with
HAVE + past participle, but since this is an earlier development than the
loss of BE, it is more difficult to trace. The loss of BE is also relevant in
the discussion of the development of the Swedish supine form; it has
been suggested that the two changes (the loss of BE and the emergence
of the supine) are correlated (Johannisson 1945, Platzack 1988a).
The first part of this chapter presents a study of the variation between
HAVE and BE in a Swedish material from mainly the 17th century. I
investigate whether it is possible to find any regularities in the shifts in
the variation when BE is lost, i.e., whether BE is lost at different points
in time in different contexts. In section 7.4, I give an overview of the
restrictions on BE in Present-Day Swedish compared to older Swedish
and to Present-Day Norwegian and Icelandic. Sections 7.5 and 7.6 concern unaccusativity and the question what distinguishes examples like
(7:2) above from examples like (7:3).
7.1. Material and data collection
In order to trace the loss of BE in the historical records, I have investigated the distribution of HAVE and BE with unaccusative verbs in
21 older Swedish texts written by authors born between the years 1568
and 1706. In this section, I briefly comment on the choice of texts and
on the principles behind the collection of data.
235
7.1.1. Texts
As always in historical studies, the available material is fragmentary and
cannot possibly give a balanced picture of the language usage of earlier
times. What we need in the study of a historical change is above all data
which, together with our theoretical understanding, point to qualitative
shifts over time. In the two previous chapters, the discussion therefore
centred on cases that were unexpected from a modern point of view;
present-day data were a necessary complement in the discussion. In this
chapter, I also consider shifts in the historical data. The aim is not to
describe stylistic or geographical variation, but to trace the development
of Standard Present-Day Swedish and to understand the changes in the
grammatical system. However, although the focus is on syntacticsemantic factors, stylistic, social or geographical factors cannot be completely disregarded. On the contrary, the historical study brings the connection between social and individual aspects of language to the fore.
Differences between individuals with regard to a grammatical feature
are generally not considered a linguistic change until they spread in the
community.
The period investigated here offers more of a choice with regard to
texts than previous ones. In the choice of texts, the geographical origin
and style is, as far as possible, kept constant. Most of the texts are
written by authors from Central Sweden (the area around Stockholm and
Uppsala); many are informal and can be assumed to reflect the spoken
language of the time (to a greater extent than other texts). The language
in Central Sweden is one of the main sources for Standard Present-Day
Swedish, and the area is presumably the originating centre for several of
the changes that took place in Old and Early Modern Swedish (cf.
Widmark 2000, Larsson 2004). An assumption underlying the choice of
texts is, of course, that informal texts reflect ongoing changes better than
formal or more standardized texts; texts that show no variation with regard to the investigated phenomenon say little or nothing about ongoing
change. I have considered the results from Johannisson’s (1945) study
when choosing texts.
The material is divided into two groups, one with the texts that constitute the main corpus, and one which has been investigated for comparison and to test hypotheses on a larger material. The texts are listed
in Table 7.1–7.2 below.
236
TABLE 7.1.
Author
Johannes
Bureus I
Johannes
Bureus II
Carl
Carlsson
Gyllenhielm
The primary corpus of investigated texts for the period of
change (c. 1600–1740).
Date of
birth
*1568
*1568
*1574
Johan
Rosenhane
*1611
Agneta
Horn
*1629
Samuel
Columbus I
*1642
Samuel
Columbus II
*1642
Isak Börk I
*c.1660
Isak Börk II
*c.1660
(Unknown)
–
Carl
Gyllenborg
*1679
Place
of birth
Bälinge,
Uppland
Bälinge,
Uppland
Nyköping,
Södermanland
Title
Text type
Sumlen
Anecdotes
Anteckningar
Diary
86
Autobiographical
notes
31
Egenhändiga
anteckningar
rörande tiden
1597–1601.
(c. 1640)
Oppunda,
Johan
Södermanland Rosenhanes
dagbok
(1652–1661)
Riga
Beskrivning
över min
vandringstid
(1657)
Husby,
Mål-roo eller
Dalarna
Roo-mål
(1678)
Husby,
En Swensk
Dalarna
Ordeskötsel
(1678)
Avesta,
Darius
Dalarna
(1688)
Avesta,
Apollo
Dalarna
–
Philomela
(1688)
Stockholm
Swenska
Sprätthöken
(1737)
Nr of
pages
74
Diary
305
Memoires
110
Anecdotes
68
Language
commentary
104
Drama
45
Drama
42
Drama
58
Drama
93
237
TABLE 7.2.
Author
Johannes
Messenius I
Johannes
Messenius II
Magnus Olai
Asteropherus
The secondary corpus of investigated texts for the period
of change (c. 1600–1740).
Date Place of birth
of
birth
*1579 Freberga,
Östergötland
*1579 Freberga,
Östergötland
†1647 (Unknown)
Title
Text type
Nr of
pages
Disa (1611)
Drama
Christmannus
Drama
Drama
127
Book of
travels
162
Drama
93
53
Nils Matson
Kiöping
*1621 Arboga,
Västmanland
Erik Dahlberg
*1625 Stockholm
Urban Hiärne
I
Urban Hiärne
II
Haquin Spegel
*1641 Ingermanland
En Lwstigh
comœdia widh
nampn Tisbe
(c. 1609)
Nils Matssons
Reesas korta
Beskrivning
(1674)
Erik Dahlbergs
dagbok 1625–
1699 (written
after 1699)
Rosimunda
*1641 Ingermanland
Stratonice
Short story
*1645 Ronneby,
Blekinge
*1682 Stockholm
*1706 Stigtomta,
Södermanland
Dagbok
Diary
159
Brev
Beskrivning om
en resa […]
(1743)
Letters
Rev. ed. of
the book of
travels by
Kiöping
150
174
Karl XII
Lars Salvius
Diary
In tables 7.1–7.2 date and place of birth of the author are given (when
known), as well as text type and the number of (investigated) pages.156
156
The complete texts have been investigated, apart from the extensive notes by
Gyllenhielm and the letters by Karl XII. I judged the first 31 pages of Gyllenhielm’s
notes (45 examples) to be sufficient to get a picture of the distribution of HAVE and
BE. On occasion, I have searched for examples with special verbs (particularly variable behaviour verbs like rida ‘ride’) in the electronic version of the text; these are
not included in the numerical data given in the tables below. In the primary corpus,
the texts by Bureus, Gyllenhielm, Rosenhane and Horn are preserved in originals by
the writer’s own hand. The edition of Mål-roo is based on a manuscript which can
be assumed to be a copy from the original; according to the editor, it is from the end
of the 17th century or the beginning of the 18th century. The edition of En Swensk
238
Texts are distinguished by the Roman numeral following the name of
the author, when more than one text by the same author is included in
the material.
The material includes diaries and notes which clearly reflect the spontaneous language of the writers; these include both texts by Bureus, and
the diaries by Rosenhane and Horn (cf. e.g. Larsson 2004:32f.). Also the
letters by Karl XII are private in character. The (partly fictional) diary
by Dahlberg, on the other hand, is intended for reading, and is more
elaborate in style. The notes by Gyllenhielm are formal but are included
in the material since Gyllenhielm, like Horn, represents the nobility
centred in the area around Stockholm. The corpus also includes a number of plays which are assumed to reflect the spoken language in Central
Sweden (the plays by Asteropherus, Börk and Gyllenborg; see e.g. Widmark 1969, K. Larsson 1988 and Larsson 2004:32f.). Samuel Columbus
explicitly aims at a written language which reflects the spoken version;
features of his language are typical for the area around Uppsala (cf.
Hesselman 1908:526, Larsson 2004:33). Also Urban Hiärne is a representative of the educated class in Uppsala. The plays by Messenius and
the diary by Spegel are conservative with regard to the HAVE/BE alternation, and the authors do not have a Central Swedish origin, but they
have been investigated for comparison. The corpus includes four printed
texts, the play by Gyllenborg, which was printed in Stockholm 1740, the
play Disa by Messenius (printed in Stockholm 1611), as well as the first
edition of the book of travels by Kiöping and the third edition of the
same text, revised by Lars Salvius. Salvius is known to have had the
ambition to standardize both spelling and morphology, and also makes
syntactic changes in accordance with the usage of his own time (see
Santesson 1986, Magnusson 2007:168ff.); differences between the two
editions might therefore reflect the direction of a change.
7.1.2. Data collection
All perfect-type constructions with HAVE or BE + an unaccusative verb
have been collected independently of their acceptability in Present-Day
Ordeskötsel is based on a manuscript from 1710, which states that it is based on the
original (see the introduction to the edition by Boström p. XI). Philomela and the
plays by Börk are preserved in the same manuscript, which includes also several
other plays from the theatre Lejonkulan in Stockholm. The editors note that the
entire manuscript is written by the same hand, but all plays do not have the same
author, although they all appear to have a Central Swedish origin (see Noreen 1938).
239
Swedish. As in previous chapters, I include gradual change of state
verbs like växa ‘grow’, punctual change of state verbs like ske ‘happen’,
telic change of location verbs like anlända ‘arrive’ and variable behaviour verbs (e.g. resa ‘travel’ and löpa ‘run’) in telic contexts in the
group of unaccusatives.157 Verbs like resa ‘travel’ or fara ‘go, travel’
sometimes have a telic reading in the absence of a particle or PP; these
cases are also included in the data set. The verb fara is a variable behaviour verb in the present-day standard, and it occurs in atelic contexts
like (7:4). In older Swedish (as in modern dialects), fara is sometimes
best analysed as an inherently telic verb, and unlike variable behaviour
verbs it can have a telic reading with a locative, non-directional PP; cf.
(7:5a) which has a directional, telic reading, and the present-day example with resa ‘travel’ in (7:5b), which does not.
Han har farit omkring en stund.
he has gone around a while
‘He has being running around for a while.’
(7:4)
(7:5)
a.
b.
i medler tidh war H: Mtt,
farin i Ryssmarken
in mean time was His Majesty gone in Ryssmarken
‘in the meantime, His Majesty had gone to Ryssmarken’
(Rosenhane *1611:195)
Han reser
i Ryssland.
he travels in Russia
‘He is travelling in Russia.’
Only predicates that could appear in the complement of BE in older
Swedish, and which form perfects with HAVE in Present-Day Swedish
are included in the data; predicates that behave the same throughout the
history of Swedish and never show any variation in their behaviour with
regard to HAVE and BE are disregarded; reflexive and transitive constructions are not included, nor are passive participles. Consequently,
examples like (7:6a) have not been considered, as the corresponding
construction with HAVE obligatorily involves a reflexive; cf. (7:6b–
c).158 Examples of verbs which optionally take a reflexive have been
included in the data when they occur in a construction without the reflexive.
157
A couple of examples with bli ‘remain’ with a stative reading have been excluded from the data set; in these cases, the auxiliary is always HAVE.
158 In (7:6c) a perfect is coordinated with a passive, and the passive auxiliary is
omitted in the second conjunct. It is known that older Swedish allowed asymmetric
coordination (see Magnusson 2007 for extensive discussion).
240
(7:6)
a.
b.
c.
Hon är gift.
she is married
‘She is married.’
Hon har gift
*(sig).
she has married REFL
‘She has married.’
han hade gift
sigh men ike vigd medh
he had married REFL but not wed with
‘he had gotten married but [is] not wed to her’
(Bureus I *1568:226)
henne
her
The verb komma ‘come’ is included in the data set, but not when it occurs in transitive structures or when it takes an infinitival complement.
In the latter cases, the auxiliary is always HAVE; consider (7:7). Both
types of examples are rare.
(7:7)
a.
b.
Nu haar iagh kommit min saak i lagh
now have I
come my case in order
‘Now I have put my case in order’
(Asteropherus c. 1609:97)
huru har du […] kommit at bära denne främmande narre-dräkten?
how have you
come
to wear this foreign
fool.costume
‘How have you come to wear this foreign costume for fools?’
(Gyllenborg *1679:28)
It cannot always be decided purely on the basis of the historical data
whether a particular construction is possible or obligatory. The fact that
examples like (7:6b) always involve a reflexive in the historical records
is, for instance, not by itself evidence that the reflexive is obligatory. I
have therefore sometimes had to rely on my Present-Day Swedish intuitions (in combination with theoretical and cross-linguistic knowledge).
One important reason to increase the number of investigated texts with
the secondary material was to find the possible cases of variation,
especially where my modern intuitions have little to say.
Unaccusative verbs presumably do not assign accusative, dative or
genitive case to an object DP. DPs with oblique case (or non-subject
DPs) do, however, sometimes occur also in active constructions with
BE, as well as with HAVE. Consider first the examples in (7:8), which
involve the pronouns eder ‘you’ and mig ‘me’ in the object form.159
159
Like Present-Day Swedish, 17th century Swedish makes a distinction between
subject and object forms of personal pronouns, but it generally lacks case morphology.
241
(7:8)
a.
b.
Ähr eder
ingen fara hänt
is
you.OBJ no
harm happened
‘Has no harm happened to you’
(Messenius II *1579:15)
at
thet inte har gåt mig
alt,
som thet skule
that it
not have gone me.OBJ everything as it
should
‘that not everything has gone for me as it should have’
(Horn *1629:84)
Dative Experiencers or Benefactives/Malefactives like those in (7:8)
above (so-called free datives) do not affect the choice of auxiliary, but
occur both with HAVE and BE (cf. Schäfer 2008a and references cited
there); these examples are therefore included in the data set.
Consider now the examples in (7:9), which involve the DPs 2 mijl ‘2
miles’ and 29 mijl ‘29 miles’.
(7:9)
a.
b.
män nähr wij woro kumbne 2 mijl i haffwett måste wij
but when we were come 2 miles in the.sea
must
we
wända om
turn
around
‘but when we had come 2 miles out into the sea we had to turn
around’
(Rosenhane *1611:131)
Biskopens skutha hwilken dän daghen hadhe seghlat 29 mijl
the.bishops ship which that the.day had sailed 29 miles
‘The bishop’s ship which had sailed 29 miles that day’
(Rosenhane *1611:108)
Unlike free datives, Path DPs are expected to occur only with HAVE;
variable behaviour verbs with Paths are not included among the unaccusative verbs, and Paths tend to make active past participles impossible (cf. chapter 2 above). Johannisson (1945:101) also states that in
the presence of a Path the auxiliary is HAVE throughout the history of
Swedish, with few exceptions. The examples with BE in the texts investigated here involve inherently telic change of location verbs and not
variable behaviour verbs, as do the exceptions mentioned by Johannisson. In fact, the DP 2 mijl ‘2 miles’ in (7:9a) does not necessarily express a Path, but could be argued to give a position (‘2 miles from
land’), which specifies the telos of the participial verb.160 I include ex160
In Present-Day Swedish, the verb komma can have an active participle in the
complement of BE in the presence of an expression like en mil på väg ‘one mile of
the way’; see (i).
(i) Han är kommen en mil på
he
is come
one mile on
‘He has come one mile of the way.’
väg.
way
242
amples like (7:9a) in the data (a couple of cases), but disregard examples
with HAVE + variable behaviour verbs and DPs that expresses a Path;
the latter include also two examples with fara ‘go, travel’.
As pointed out by Johannisson (1945:101), there is one type of nominal which in the older sources generally occur with the auxiliary BE,
rather than with HAVE, namely sin väg ‘his/her/their way’; see (7:10). I
treat these cases in the same way as adverbs like bort ‘away’, since they
have a similar meaning and behave (partly) in the same way in older
Swedish. Hence, they are included in the data set.
han […] war saa syn
wegh lwpen
he
was so POSS.REFL way run
‘he had so run his way’
(Petri tänkebok *1493:21; from Johannisson 1945:101)
(7:10)
The example in (7:11) is similar, but involves the nominal en annan väg
‘a different way’ which does not specify a telos; there are no examples
like this with BE + variable behaviour verbs in the material, and also
(7:11) is exceptional. The rare cases with inherently telic verbs have
been included in the data, regardless of whether the auxiliary is HAVE
or BE.
Menn nähr rycktett
kom, att konungen var dragen en
but
when the.rumour came that the.king was gone an
annann vägh
other way
‘But when the rumour came, that the king had gone a different way’
(Gyllenhielm *1574:286)
(7:11)
For some groups of verbs it can be difficult to determine whether the
participle is verbal or purely adjectival. I have not attempted to distinguish between target state and resultant state participles, and a few examples of target state participles are therefore included in the material.
The possible cases are infrequent in all texts. Unambiguously adjectival
participles like the examples in (7:12), which do not have a verbal
counterpart, have been disregarded.
(7:12)
a.
b.
Och ala vor handhfalna.
and all were hand.fallen
‘And all were bewildered.’
(Horn *1629:17)
at
han war åldersteegen
that he was age.risen
‘that he was old’
(Columbus I *1642:29)
243
Participles which most likely should be treated as adjectives or adjectival participles have been excluded when the corresponding example is
grammatical in Present-Day Swedish, but not otherwise; most of these
examples include the participle död ‘dead, died’. Hence, the example in
(7:13a) is included in the data set, while (7:13b) is not; cf. the modern
examples in (7:14).
(7:13)
a.
b.
(7:14)
upå dätta åhrett ähr wår nampnkunnoghe
upon this the.year is
our famous
‘this year our famous king died’
(Rosenhane *1611:307)
Män då sågh iag, at
min mor
war
but then saw I
that my mother was
‘But then I saw that my mother was dead for me’
(Horn *1629:nr246)
Kånung död.
king
dead
dödh for
dead for
mig
me
a. * Det här året
är han död.
this here the.year is he dead
b. Då förstod
jag att min mor
var död.
then understood I
that my mother was dead
‘Then I understood that my mother was dead.’
Since BE is impossible in past counterfactuals throughout the history of
Swedish, counterfactuals are not included in the data set.161 Some texts
use a common reduced form ha (or a similar form) for present, preterite
and non-finite forms of HAVE (cf. Nordberg 1985a and references cited
there). In several cases, the auxiliary HAVE therefore has present tense
morphology (hafwa) or a reduced form ha in the counterfactual, and not
the expected preterite form (hadhe); consider the examples in (7:15). All
(finite and non-finite) counterfactuals are excluded, independently of the
tense morphology of the auxiliary.
(7:15)
161
a.
Och hafwa di icke så snart komit dit,
så hafwa wi ala
and have they not so soon come there so have we all
drunkna,
drowned
’And if they had not come there so soon, we all would have drowned’
(Horn *1629:25)
As noted in chapter 5 above (fn. 116), one exceptional case involves BE; this
has also been excluded.
244
b.
du ha, […] blit
wäl gift, […] om intet denne händelse
you have
become well married
if
not this event
röidt
din Friares rätta kynne
exposed your suitor’s true temper
‘you would have married well if this event [had] not exposed the true
temper of your suitor
(Gyllenborg *1679:82)
A small group of verbs can have either a passive or an active reading in
the complement of BE; these involve verbs that have homonymous transitive and anticausative forms. In the older Swedish material, the cases
are rare and typically involve either böria ‘begin’ or lykta ‘finish’; see
the example in (7:16a). These have been excluded, apart from the example in (7:16b) where the subject, Pestilentien ‘the plague’, makes a
passive reading far-fetched.162
(7:16)
a.
b.
böriede iagh skrifva Nicolao Granio til, det brefvet wexte
began I
write Nicolao Granio to
that the.letter grew
til en bok papeer och är än intet lyktat 1617.
to a book paper and is yet not finished 1617
‘I began to write to Nicolai Granio. That letter grew to a book of
paper and has not yet been finished in 1617’
(Bureus II *1568:29)
at
Pestilentien var böriat
that the.plague
was begun
‘that the plague had begun’
(Bureus II *1568:120)
Some of the plays (e.g. the plays by Börk) are written in verse; this can
affect e.g. word order and the frequency of HAVE omission, but it does
not seem to influence the choice of HAVE and BE to any considerable
extent. I have noted a few cases where the form of the participle matters
to the rhyme, but nevertheless included them in the data set; they involve both HAVE and BE, and do not affect the overall distribution of
the auxiliaries.
All investigated examples in the primary corpus have been sorted
according to a number of factors (adverbials, particles, word order, type
of subject etc.). Participles in coordinations with a shared auxiliary are
included, and the conjuncts are counted separately, but they have been
marked as such. The same examples have been investigated in both the
162
As noted, komma ‘come’ occurs in a transitive structure on a couple of rare
occasions. I still treat komma as an unambiguous unaccusative (and not a passive)
when in the complement of BE. As far as I can tell, transitive komma does not
passivize.
245
primary corpus and in the texts that have been included for comparison,
but for the secondary material no frequencies have been calculated. Four
of the texts are electronic (Kiöping, Salvius, Hiärne II, Spegel); in these,
only cases with an explicit auxiliary are included. In the other texts, all
cases of omission of the (finite or non-finite) auxiliary have been noted.
If nothing else is said, I treat examples with omitted auxiliary as
involving HAVE; in Present-Day Swedish only HAVE can be omitted.
There is one example which involves what seems to be a participle
agreeing with the subject; it is given in (7:17) below. Since subjectparticiple agreement is otherwise restricted to constructions with BE, it
is possible that it is BE and not HAVE which is omitted.
(7:17)
Ty Iag af maktlöshet
nu swimmar ned
till Iorden /
for I
of powerlessness now faint
down to the.earth
Men du såm mig till tiänst af Himlen skikkat worden
but you who me to service of heaven sent
became.C.SG
‘For out of powerlessness I now faint onto the earth. But you who
[have] been sent to my service from heaven’
(Börk I *c. 1660:301)
However, in this case, it is also possible that the form of the participle
has been chosen since it rhymes with the previous line, which ends with
Iorden ‘the earth’. Moreover, there is reason to believe that the form
worden was not part of the spoken language at the time (see section
7.3.4 below). The rare examples with an omitted auxiliary and a (seemingly) inflected participle often involve varda ‘become’ also in Johannisson’s (1945) material. There is a theoretical possibility that some of
the other cases without an explicit auxiliary should also be analysed as
involving BE. The morphological distinction between supine and past
participle is not fully established in the 17th century, and many examples
do not have unambiguously non-agreeing participles (since they have
neuter singular subjects). Moreover, there are a few cases where BE
occurs with a non-agreeing participle, as in (7:18).
(7:18)
Dän
hwilkens ägen Iag i lijf åg död
that.C.SG. whose
own I
in life and death
blifwit
become.PTC.N.SG.
‘the one whose own I have become in life and death’
(Philomela 1688:218)
är
is
However, since there is little positive evidence for BE-omission in the
historical records (but ample evidence for HAVE-omission), and since
246
omission of BE is not possible in Present-Day Swedish, I will assume
that 17th century Swedish did not allow omission of BE.
7.2. Outline of the change
In this section I give an overview of the alternation between HAVE and
BE in the material and specify the period when BE becomes more restricted.
7.2.1. The period of change
In Johannisson’s (1945) material, the over-all frequency of unaccusatives in perfect-type constructions with BE is almost identical in Old
Swedish (83 %) and in the first century of the Early Modern Swedish
Period (82 %); see Table 7.3 below. In the first half of the 18th century,
the frequency drops to 47 %, and in the second half of the 18th century
only 14 % of the examples involve BE.
TABLE 7.3.
The frequency of BE in older Swedish (from Johannisson
1945:139, Table 9).
Period
Old Swedish (–1526)
1526–1600
1601–1700
1701–1750
1750–1800
% BE
83 %
82 %
75 %
47 %
14 %
# BE/total
1719/2074
1810/2203
1481/1962
696/1483
92/660
Johannisson concludes that the alternation between HAVE and BE is
stable in the period up until the 18th century. He notes only one change
during the first 150 years of the Early Modern Swedish period, namely
the innovation of HAVE in perfects of the passive auxiliaries bliva
‘become’ and varda ‘become’; I return to this below.
We have seen that there is variation between texts in the Old and
Early Modern Swedish periods. Johannisson points to differences between dialects; for instance, he suggests that examples of HAVE for expected BE in Bureus’ Sumlen is due to the author’s Central Swedish
origin (1945:153). As a measure of the variation between texts, I have
calculated the standard deviation in the frequency of BE in the different
periods in Johannisson’s material, including only texts that have 20 or
247
more examples of either HAVE or BE; see Table 7.4 which also gives
the average frequency of BE and the range between the highest and lowest frequency.
TABLE 7.4.
Variation in the frequency of BE in older Swedish (based
on the data in Johannisson 1945:135–138, Table 2–8).
Period
Old Swedish (–1526)
1526–1600
1601–1700
1701–1750
1750–1800
Average
% BE
85 %
82 %
72 %
45 %
12 %
Range
44 (56–100 %)
24 (67–91 %)
77 (18–95 %)
52 (28–80 %)
27 (2–29 %)
Standard
deviation
12.2
8.0
20.8
16.6
9.1
Nr of
texts
26
18
24
16
8
The data in Table 7.4 reveal that, despite the modest drop in the frequency of BE from the 16th to the 17th century, there is a significant difference between the two periods: while the variation between texts is
limited (σ = 8.0) in the 16th century, it is considerable in the 17th century
(σ = 20.8). The variation in the 17th century cannot fully be explained
with reference to dialects or text types (cf. Larsson 2007). Rather, there
is variation between individuals, and this variation suggests ongoing
change. For instance, the letters by Karl XII (*1682) has only 31 % BE,
while the letters by his father, Karl XI (*1655), has 95 % BE (see
Johannisson 1945:137, Tables 6 and 7).
As shown in Table 7.4, the variation is more limited in the 16th
century and in the second half of the 18th century than in the other periods. We know that the 16th century texts show a high degree of conformity with regard also to e.g. text type, and that the preserved records
most likely do not fully reflect the possible variation. In the 18th century,
on the other hand, we can begin to refer to a Modern Swedish standard,
which is no longer carried by individual writers or restricted to certain
registers. In the 17th century BE is still the standard auxiliary in formal
texts, and in texts by authors that are not from Central Sweden, whereas
in the 18th century, HAVE has become norm. Dalin’s (*1708) Argus I-II
has only 28 % BE with unaccusatives, and Hof’s (*1703) Swenska
språkets rätta skrifsätt, which aims at describing the best Swedish, has
only 5 % BE (Johannisson 1945:138, Tables 7 and 8); neither Hof nor
Dalin is from Central Sweden. The loss of BE with active participle in
this way fits in well with a number of other changes that take place during the 17th century and lead to the standard language that is established
248
from the 18th century onwards (see e.g. Platzack 1985 and Larsson 2004,
and references cited there).
If we consider the informal texts from the area around Stockholm and
Uppsala in the primary corpus investigated here, we can note a decrease
in the frequency of BE during the 17th century; see Table 7.5 below.163
The two texts by Bureus are small and therefore treated together, as are
the two texts by Börk.
TABLE 7.5.
The frequency of BE with unaccusatives in the primary
corpus.
Author (or text)
Bureus I + II
Gyllenhielm
Rosenhane
Horn
Columbus I, Mål-roo
Columbus II, Ordeskötsel
Börk I + II
Philomela
Gyllenborg
TOTAL
Date
*1568
*1574
*1611
*1629
*1642
*1642
*c. 1660
1668
*1679
# BE/tot
29/36
43/45
78/89
36/57
23/39
19/43
11/54
12/37
19/51
270/451
% BE
81 %
96 %
88 %
63 %
59 %
44 %
20 %
32 %
37 %
60 %
The plays by Börk (*c. 1660) show the lowest frequency of BE in the
material; they are generally considered representative of the spoken
language around Stockholm and Uppsala at the time (cf. Cederschiöld
1902:237). It is not unlikely that the difference between the plays by
Börk and Gyllenborg is due to the fact that the latter is somewhat more
literary. We can conclude that the loss of BE took place largely during
the 17th century, at least in Central Sweden. Since BE is sometimes
possible also in Present-Day Swedish, we do not expect the frequency to
drop to zero.
The data in Table 7.5 also include cases where the auxiliary is
omitted. In the oldest sources in the material, omission of the finite
auxiliary HAVE only occurs rarely, and the examples are often unclear,
but HAVE-omission is frequent in the younger texts. The drop in the
163
Since Johannisson’s figures include counterfactuals as well as e.g. the adjectival
participle död ‘dead’, the frequency of BE in my study differs from his. The
difference between the two texts by Columbus is due to the frequency of the verbs
varda ‘become’ and bliva ‘become’. Columbus’ Ordeskötsel has more examples
with bliva than Mål-roo, and bliva favours HAVE over BE (see section 7.3.4
below).
249
frequency of BE is therefore smaller when cases without an explicit
auxiliary are disregarded; see Table 7.6 below.
TABLE 7.6.
The frequency of BE with unaccusatives in the primary
corpus, disregarding cases with (finite or non-finite)
auxiliary omission.
Author (or text)
Bureus I + II
Gyllenhielm
Rosenhane
Horn
Columbus I, Mål-roo
Columbus II, Ordeskötsel
Börk I + II
Philomela
Gyllenborg
TOTAL
Date
*1568
*1574
*1611
*1629
*1642
*1642
*c. 1660
1668
*1679
# BE/tot
29/36
43/45
78/87
36/56
23/39
19/42
11/40
12/26
19/30
270/401
% BE
81 %
96 %
90 %
64 %
59 %
45 %
28 %
46 %
63 %
67 %
However, the difference between e.g. Rosenhane (90 % BE) and Börk’s
plays (28 % BE) is still significant. Also the fact that the frequency of
BE is 20–30 percentage points lower in the texts by Columbus and Horn
than in the most conservative texts in the material suggests that the construction with BE was not simply replaced with a construction without
an explicit auxiliary; there is no difference between the texts with regard
to auxiliary omission. In the following, I continue to treat cases of auxiliary omission as involving HAVE.
Johannisson (1945) argues that the loss of BE is a consequence of the
frequent auxiliary ellipses at the beginning of the 18th century; this is
also proposed by Platzack (1989). The data reviewed so far suggest that
the loss of BE took place somewhat earlier than Johannisson claims, and
that there is no simple causal link between the emergence of the possibility of finite auxiliary omission in subordinate clauses and the drop in
the frequency of BE. This does, however, not mean that the two changes
are completely independent. I return to the possible connection between
them in section 7.7. Auxiliary omission is discussed further in chapter 9.
In the following sections, I look closer at the distribution of HAVE
and BE in the 17th century, and at the shifts in the variation.
250
7.2.2. HAVE and BE in the 17th century
In Present-Day Danish, unaccusative verbs form perfects with BE;
HAVE is generally ungrammatical with participles of unaccusative
verbs. In chapter 5, it was observed that this is not the case in older
Swedish; particularly in experiential contexts and past counterfactuals,
the auxiliary is HAVE also with unaccusative verbs. I concluded that the
construction with BE + active participle was not a perfect in older
Swedish, but expressed a target state or a resultant state. For the resultative reading, a construction with BE is preferred in Swedish before the
17th century, and examples with HAVE + participle of an unaccusative
verb are infrequent and tend to have an experiential or a counterfactual
reading. Examples with HAVE + unaccusative verbs that have a resultative reading are, however, not unattested; see the examples in (7:19).164
(7:19)
a.
b.
Än nw hafwir biscopin farit vppa höght biärgh
but now has
the.bishop gone upon high
mountain
‘But now the bishop has gone up on a high mountain’
(Birgitta 14th c.:346; from Johannisson 1945:129)
Thå Jesus vpståndit
hadhe om morghonen på första
when Jesus resurrected had
in
the.morning on first
Sabbatz daghen, syntes
han först Marie Magdalene
Sabbath the.day showed.REFL he first Mary Magdalene
‘When Jesus had resurrected on the morning of the first day of
Sabbath he showed himself to Mary Magdalene first’
(NT 1526, Mark 16:9; from Johannisson 1945:111)
Hence, both HAVE and BE can to some extent have a resultative reading with participles of unaccusative verbs. There is actually variation
between HAVE and BE in otherwise almost identical contexts; cf.
(7:20a) and (7:20b).
(7:20)
164
(i)
a.
Her Didrik sporde hwre haffuer tik gangit i Rytzseland.
Sir Didrik asked how have
you gone
in Russia
‘Sir Didrik asked: how has it gone for you in Russia?’
(Didrik 15th c.:200; from Johannisson 1945:111)
The Bible from 1541 has BE in the example corresponding to (7:19b); see (i).
Men när Jesus vpstånden war om morghonen på första
but
when Jesus resurrected was in the.morning on first
Sabbatzdagen
the.Sabbath.day
‘but when Jesus had resurrected on the morning of the first day of Sabbath’
(GVB 1541, Mark 16:9)
251
b.
böriade Anthenor framseya hwro honom ganget war j grecia
began Anthenor say
how him
gone
were in Greece
‘Anthenor began to say how it had gone for him in Greece’
(Historia Trojana 1529:47; from Johannisson 1945:111)
In Old Swedish, the variation is limited, and resultative perfects with
HAVE + unaccusatives are rare. Before the 18th century, the verb dö
‘die’ occurs only seven times in perfects with HAVE in Johannisson’s
corpus; five of these are counterfactuals (1945:124). As we have seen,
HAVE quickly becomes more common in the 17th century, and the use
of BE is subsequently restricted.
In chapter 5, I noted that BE sometimes occurs in examples with an
experiential reading. By the 17th century, these examples are very rare,
and the construction with BE mainly has a resultative reading, as it does
in Present-Day Swedish; some typical examples are given in (7:21).
(7:21)
a.
b.
c.
Män rät nu på timen
är han hit til mig komin.
but right now on the.hour is he here to me come
‘But right now on the hour has he come here to me.’
(Horn *1629:62)
Min iemmers moln ähr driffven hän.
my woe’s
clouds are drifted away
‘the clouds of my woe have drifted away’
(Hiärne II *1641:44)
En bonde sade åt hustrun sin,
så snart han war
a
farmer said to the.wife POSS.REFL as soon he was
hemkommen, att hon skulle […]
home.come that she should
‘A farmer said to his wife, as soon has he had come home, that she
should…’
(Columbus I *1642:42)
There is, however, variation between more and less conservative texts.
On a couple of occasions, BE occurs with aldrig ‘never’ in the 17th and
18th century texts; see the examples (7:22). The example in (7:22a) is
from the conservative text by Spegel. The example in (7:22b), from
Börk’s Darius, involves the adverb än ‘yet’ in addition to aldrig. We
have seen that aldrig is possible in resultant state constructions also in
Present-Day Swedish, but that the typical implication is that the participial eventuality has not happened as of yet; cf. (7:23).
252
(7:22)
a.
b.
(7:23)
men som dhetta aldrig är skeet,
ej
heller hade någon
but as this never is happened not either had any
apparence til at kunna
skee,
så äre the
swårliga
appearence to to be.able.to happen so are they terribly
bedragne
deceived
‘but as this has never happened, and did not look as if it could
happen, they have been terribly deceived’
(Spegel *1645:111)
Ty
Perser
aldrig än til listighet wa fala
because Persians never yet to cunning were fallen
‘because Persians had never yet surrendered to cunning’
(Börk I *1660:273)
Den här är aldrig använd.
this here is never used
‘This has never been used.’
There are only a few examples with adverbs of iteration and frequency
in the material and they generally involve HAVE; see (7:24).
(7:24)
att en Räf hadde 3. gångor lupit öfwer wägen för honom
that a fox had
3 times run over the.road for him
‘that a fox had run three times over the road before him’
(Columbus I *1642:49)
The examples with BE with an iterative reading that are listed by
Johannisson (1945:103f.), all come from older texts, with the exception
of a couple of examples from Messenius; cf. (7:25).
(7:25)
om
hwilke vthi Swerige altijdh tilförene äre Comœdier
about which in
Sweden always before
are comedies
celebrerade bleffne.
performed
become
‘about which comedies have always been performed in Sweden
before’
(Messenius I *1579:[2])
Whereas the use of BE is more restricted in the Central Swedish 17th
century texts than in previous periods, the auxiliary HAVE is less so. In
the 17th and 18th century material investigated here, resultative perfects
with HAVE and participles of unaccusative verbs are no longer rare. A
couple of examples are given in (7:26).
253
(7:26)
a.
b.
När en af hans trogneste
konungzmänn hade aflijdit
when one of his most.faithful kingsmen
had deceased
‘when one of his most faithful kingsmen had deceased’
(Columbus I *1642:29)
att dels ha redan flytt
that some have already fled
‘that some have already fled’
(Börk I *c. 1660:295)
Also in the more conservative texts, there is (limited) variation with
regard to HAVE and BE in perfect-type constructions with a resultative
reading; see the examples from Gyllenhielm in (7:27) and the examples
from Spegel in (7:28).
(7:27)
a.
b.
(7:28)
a.
b.
Jost Cursel […] och andra lifländare mera, som vore aff
Jost Cursel
and other Livonians more
who were of
godh villia medh redne
good will with
ridden
‘Jost Cursel […] and several other Livonians who had ridden along
out of free will’
(Gyllenhielm *1574:327)
haffver herr Nils Bielke […] rididt till herttigen
has
sir Nils Bielke
ridden to
the.duke
‘has Sir Nils Bielke ridden to the duke’
(Gyllenhielm *1574:280)
genom hwars wållande then pomerska arméen […] war
through whose cause
the Pomerian the.army
was
råkad
i
sådan decadence
happened in
such
decadence
‘who had caused the Pomerian army to fall into such decadence’
(Spegel *1645:5)
at
the andre, som i föllie
wore, hade råkat
that the others who in company were
had happened
i
så
stoor
olykko
in
so great misfortune
‘that the others, who were in the company, had fallen into such great
misfortune’
(Spegel *1645:139)
In the following section, I investigate whether all examples behave in
the same way with regard to HAVE and BE during the time of change,
or if there are contexts where one auxiliary is preferred to the other.
254
7.3. Tracing shifts in the variation
It is clear that the alternation between HAVE and BE is not correlated
with factors such as word order or clause type (see further Larsson
2007). Such correlations would hardly be expected considering the
choice between HAVE and BE in examples like (7:29) in Present-Day
Swedish. Given that (7:29a) is a resultative perfect, the choice between
HAVE and BE is mainly stylistic (disregarding geographical variation);
in the standard language, (7:29b) is the marked alternative. We have
already seen that there is intra-individual variation of this kind also in
the 17th century, and that this variation is greater than in previous periods.
(7:29)
a.
b.
Båten
har redan ankommit till bryggan.
the.boat has already arrived
to
the.wharf
‘The boat has already arrived at the wharf.’
Båten
är redan ankommen till bryggan.
the.boat is already arrived
to
the.wharf
‘The boat has already arrived at the wharf.’
In this section, I consider factors that are expected to favour one auxiliary over the other, given what is generally said about unaccusatives (cf.
chapter 2, section 2.4.1 above). I focus on factors relating to agency,
telicity and verb types, and disregard factors that favour HAVE throughout the older Swedish period (i.e., counterfactuality and factors relating
to a distinction between experiential and resultative perfects). The verbs
varda ‘become’ and bliva ‘become’ are discussed separately in section
7.3.4.
Since the number of cases is small in the individual texts, I have divided the corpus into three periods; see Table 7.7 below. The first group
consists of the four oldest texts in the material (the texts by Bureus,
Gyllenhielm and Rosenhane); the second includes the texts by Horn and
Columbus, and the last group consists of the plays by Börk and Gyllenborg, and Philomela.165
165
All texts, with the exception of the notes by Gyllenhielm, can be considered
informal, and they can, as noted, be assumed to better reflect the spoken language of
their time than other texts. The fact that texts in Period I are all diaries and notes,
whereas the texts in Period III are plays, need not be of any concern.
255
TABLE 7.7.
The primary corpus divided into three periods.
Author (or text)
Bureus I, Sumlen
Bureus II, Anteckningar
Gyllenhielm
Rosenhane
Horn
Columbus I, Mål-roo
Columbus II, Ordeskötsel
Börk I, Darius
Börk II, Apollo
Philomela
Gyllenborg
Date
*1568
*1568
*1574
*1611
*1629
*1642
*1642
*c. 1660
*c. 1660
1668
*1679
Period
I
II
III
7.3.1. Agency
Given the standard analysis of unaccusatives, where an unaccusative
verb takes a non-agentive subject generated as an internal argument, we
might expect animate and agentive subjects to favour HAVE, and agentoriented adverbials to be restricted in the perfect-like construction with
BE. It would also be plausible that BE was first lost in agentive contexts. Since agency is generally restricted to animate subjects, I have
sorted the examples of unaccusative verbs in the primary corpus according to whether the subject is animate or not. Animate subjects are
generally human, but there are also a few occurrences of mainly gods or
the like. Three unclear examples have been excluded.
Both HAVE and BE occur with animate as well as inanimate subjects
in the historical material; cf. the inanimate subject with HAVE in
(7:30a) and the animate subject with BE in (7:30b) below. If BE is
favoured by non-agentive subject, we expect the frequency of BE to be
higher with inanimate than with animate subjects.
(7:30)
a.
b.
ther
synes blodh hafva utgångit
there seems blood have
out.gone
‘blood seems to have gone out there’
(Bureus I *1568:200)
Straxtt konungen var kommen i landet
once
the.king
was come
in the.country
‘as soon as the king had come into the country’
(Gyllenhielm *1574:282)
The results are summarized in Table 7.8.
256
TABLE 7.8.
Text
Period I
Period II
Period III
TOTAL
The frequency of BE with inanimate and animate
subjects in the primary corpus.
# BE +
inanim.
subjects
53/59
31/54
18/63
102/176
% BE +
inanim.
subjects
90 %
57 %
29 %
58 %
# BE +
anim.
subjects
96/110
46/84
24/78
166/272
% BE +
anim.
Subjects
87 %
55 %
31 %
61 %
TOTAL
# BE
TOTAL
% BE
149/169
77/138
42/141
268/448
88 %
55 %
30 %
60 %
Animacy does not appear to be a factor in the alternation between BE
and HAVE. The difference between examples with inanimate and animate subjects is small in all texts. The overall frequency of BE is, in
fact, slightly higher in clauses with animate subject than with inanimate
subjects, and not the other way around. The data do not reveal any clear
change, and younger texts do not necessarily have a larger (or smaller)
difference between the cases with inanimate and cases with animate subjects.
In order to isolate the factor animacy further, I have calculated the
frequency of BE + the verb komma ‘come’ with inanimate and animate
subjects, not including cases where komma occurs with a particle; the
data are given in Table 7.9 below. Since the number of occurrences in
the individual texts is small, I only give the total frequency in the
corpus.
TABLE 7.9.
# BE +
inanimate
subjects
17/23
The frequency of BE + the verb komma ‘come’ and
inanimate and animate subjects.
% BE +
inanimate
subjects
74 %
# BE +
animate
subjects
37/47
% BE +
animate
subjects
79 %
TOTAL
# BE
TOTAL
% BE
54/70
77 %
The picture is very similar to that in Table 7.8 above (although the frequency of BE is higher); the frequency of BE + komma is slightly higher
in clauses with animate subjects than in clauses with inanimate subjects,
but the difference is small. I conclude that animacy does not influence
the alternation between HAVE and BE to any considerable extent.
Agent-oriented adverbials are compatible with BE throughout the
Early Modern Swedish period; examples are given in (7:31). In the
primary corpus, there are 42 clauses with agent-oriented adverbials expressing purpose; 30 of these (71 %) involve BE. This means that BE is,
257
in fact, somewhat more common in clauses with adverbials expressing
purpose, than overall in the material.
(7:31)
a.
b.
c.
Efter vij äre hijt komne i
then acht at
vij skola
since we are here come for the reason that we shall
göra
Gudhi then tiänst som oss bör
make God
the honour that us should
‘Since we have come here to celebrate God as we should’
(Bureus I *1568:186)
men officererne wore hembligen förra natten
ifrån dem
but the.officers were secretly
last the.night from them
gångne åth Holsteen
gone
to
Holsteen
‘but the officers had secretly gone from them to Holsteen the night
before’
(Dahlberg *1625: 115)
Owe Rammel war upsåtligen
och friwilligt inflytt i
Owe Rammel was intentionally and voluntarily in.fled in
Christianstad
Christianstad
‘Owe Rammel had intentionally and voluntarily fled into
Christianstad’
(Spegel *1645:57)
There is no restriction on animate subjects and agent-oriented adverbials
in Present-Day Swedish either; consider the examples in (7:32).
(7:32)
a.
b.
Vi är
hitresta
för att fira
en födelsedag.
we are here.travelled for to
celebrate a birthday
‘We have come here to celebrate a birthday.’
Han är frivilligt hitflyttad
från Stockholm.
he is voluntarily here.moved from Stockholm
‘He has moved here from Stockholm voluntarily.’
We can conclude that the verbs that occur with BE should not be characterized as being non-agentive. I return to the connection between unaccusativity and (non)agentivity below.
7.3.2. Particles
Unaccusatives are sometimes defined in terms of telicity rather than
agency. When BE becomes more restricted with participles of unaccusative verbs, the presence of resP can therefore be expected to be of some
importance. Following e.g. Ramchand & Svenonius (2002) and Ram-
258
chand (2008a), we can assume that particles can identify the res head in
the verb phrase. In the 17th and 18th century texts, the presence of a particle could therefore be expected to favour BE.
Since it is virtually impossible to fully distinguish particles from prepositions, adverbials and prefixes in the historical material, the numerial
data should be understood as a rough estimate. Among the particles, I
have included elements that generally incorporate into the participle in
constructions with BE, but which are not incorporated (or prefixed) in
perfects with HAVE; cf. (7.33a) and (7:33b). The order particle–participle is taken to involve incorporation, independently of whether the
particle and the participle together constitute a graphical word.
(7:33)
a.
b.
för än H:Mtt
Dråningen war
until
Her Majesty the.Queen was
‘until Her Majesty the Queen had risen’
(Rosenhane *1611:194)
Aurora redan har ur
hafwet
Aurora already have out.of the.sea
‘Aurora has already risen out of the sea’
(Börk II *c.1660:116)
upståndin
up.risen
stigit åpp
risen up
The verb ankomma ‘arrive’ is not analysed as involving a particle, since
an- is generally prefixed also in constructions with HAVE; see (7:34)
(where the auxiliary is omitted).
breffwen och aviserne […] såm wid posten ahnkummit
the.letters and the.notes
that by the.mail arrived
‘the letters and notes that [had] arrived with the mail’
(Rosenhane *c.1660:nr835)
(7:34)
There is, however, some variation with regard to particles and prefixes
in older Swedish, and particles are sometimes incorporated into perfect
participles and not always into past participles. I have disregarded this
variation, and based the analysis on what appears to be the regular case,
relying partly on my own intuitions. Examples like (7:35) are therefore
treated as involving particles, since they require incorporation in Present-Day Swedish; cf. (7:36).
(7:35)
a.
den steenen som
var fallen nidh
af
bärghet
that the.rock which was fallen down off the.mountain
‘that rock that had fallen down from the mountain’
(Bureus I *1568:196)
259
(7:36)
b.
Är du wäl
flugen ner
att Sinnet
mitt betunga?
are you surely flown down to
the.mind mine burden
‘Have you surely flown down to burden my mind?’
(Börk II *c.1660:148)
a.
den sten som var nedfallen/*fallen ned
från
that rock that was down.fallen/fallen down from
‘the rock that had fallen down from the mountain’
Är du nerflugen/*flugen ner
för att betunga
are you down.flown/flown down for to burden
‘Have you flown down to burden my mind?’
b.
berget
the.mountain
mitt sinne?
my mind
The results are summarized in Table 7.10 below.
TABLE 7.10.
Text
Period I
Period II
Period III
TOTAL
The frequency of BE + participle with and without
particle.
# BE
without
particle
84/99
53/107
33/125
170/331
% BE
without
particle
85 %
50 %
26 %
51 %
# BE
with
particle
66/71
25/32
9/17
100/120
% BE
with
particle
93 %
78 %
53 %
83 %
TOTAL
# BE
TOTAL
% BE
150/170
78/139
42/142
270/451
88 %
56 %
30 %
60 %
We know that the presence or absence of a particle does not matter for
the choice between HAVE and BE in Old Swedish to any considerable
extent; BE was strongly preferred with unaccusative verbs in any case.
In the oldest texts investigated here, the preference for BE is somewhat
stronger (93 % BE) in cases with a particle than in cases without (85 %).
This tendency is strengthened with time. In the second period, BE is still
clearly preferred in examples involving particle verbs (78 % BE), while
there is no such preference in cases without particle (50 %). In the third
period, BE is twice as common in examples with particle as in other
cases. As we will see below, some verbs are only grammatical with BE
in Present-Day Swedish when they incorporate a particle.
Not only particles license resP; sometimes the verb itself does, and it
is possible that also certain prepositions do (cf. Folli & Ramchand
2005). Therefore the type of verb is also expected to be relevant to the
choice of HAVE or BE. Consider the verb komma ‘come’ in Table 7.11
below. Although komma presumably forms a participle with resP also in
the absence of a particle, the frequency of BE is higher when a particle
is present. On the other hand, we can note that the frequency of BE with
260
komma without a particle is almost as high (78 %) as with verbs with
particle shown in Table 7.10 above (83 %).
TABLE 7.11.
# BE without
particle
56/72
The frequency of BE + the verb komma ‘come’ with and
without particle in the primary corpus.
% BE
without
particle
78 %
# BE with
particle
% BE with
particle
# BE/tot
% BE/tot
39/42
93 %
95/114
83 %
Both telicity and agency have often been understood as a property of a
lexical verb, as has unaccusativity. In the next section, I therefore
consider how different groups of unaccusatives behave with regard to
HAVE and BE.
7.3.3. Types of events
In older Swedish, BE is possible with participles of gradual change of
state verbs, which presumably do not identify a target state (carry a res
feature); consider the example in (7:37) with the verb växa ‘grow’. The
presence of resP is not necessary for stative passives to be possible in
Present-Day Swedish either; cf. the progressive state participle in (7:38).
(7:37)
är en qist vuxin ur
thet ena trädh
is a
twig grown out.of the one the.tree
‘has a twig grown out of the first tree’
(Bureus I *1568:200)
(7:38)
Han är förföljd.
he is persecuted
‘He is being persecuted.’
Given that the presence of a particle has consequences for the choice of
HAVE or BE when BE becomes more restricted, we can expect that also
verbs with a res feature occur with BE more consistently than verbs
without; the frequency of BE with komma ‘come’ above also point in
this direction. Gradual change of state verbs are therefore expected to
favour HAVE over BE.
I have sorted the material depending on the type of predicate. Since
particles affect the alternation between HAVE and BE, I have not based
the classification only on inherent properties of the verbs. First, I
261
distinguish between examples that express a gradual change of state
(e.g. brinna ‘burn’ and växa ‘grow’) and examples that express punctual
change of state (bli ‘become’, ske ‘happen’ and somna ‘fall asleep’).
The latter group also involves examples with verbs that otherwise express a gradual change of state in constructions with a particle (as in e.g.
brinna upp ‘burn up’). I also distinguish variable behaviour verbs (e.g.
resa ‘travel) that do not occur in a construction with a particle from inherently telic change of location verbs (e.g. anlända ‘arrive’) and variable behaviour verbs with particle; the examples in (7:39) are treated
separate from examples like those in (7:40). To distinguish these two
groups, I refer to the former as change of location verbs and the latter as
variable behaviour verbs. Recall that variable behaviour verbs are only
included in the data set when they have a telic reading.
(7:39)
a.
b.
(7:40)
a.
b.
män Commissarius war ändå inte kummin
but commissioner
was yet not come
‘but the commissioner had not yet come’
(Rosenhane *1611:174)
wetten i
icke at
uhr
Grekeland äre utgångne
know you not that out.of Greece
are out.gone
wetskaper
sciences
‘Don’t you know that all science has gone out from Greece’
(Columbus I *1642:59)
alle
all
att Carl Mörner war seglad här förbi till Nyen
that Carl Mörner was sailed here past to
Nyen
‘that Carl Mörner had sailed past here to Nyen’
(Rosenhane *1611:45)
Som de nu hade gådt in utj nästa bondgåhl
as they now had gone in into next farm
‘As they now had gone into the next farm’
(Columbus I *1642:19)
While the verb komma ‘come’ generally can be treated as a change of
location verb, I distinguish different uses of gå ‘go’; e.g. gå sönder
‘break’ (lit. ‘go asunder’) is treated as a change of state verb, as is gå till
(lit. ‘go to’) when it means ‘happen’. A few uncertain examples have
been excluded.
262
The results are summarized in Table 7.12 below. Since the number of
gradual change of state verbs is small, I leave them aside in the following.166
TABLE 7.12.
Text
Period I
Period II
Period III
TOTAL
The frequency of BE with different kinds of events.
Gradual
change of state
# BE % BE
4/4 (100)
1/3
(33)
2/7
(29)
7/14
(50)
Punctual change
of state
# BE
% BE
47/55
85
26/52
50
23/90
26
96/197
49
Change of
location
# BE
% BE
86/93
92
49/65
75
17/28
61
152/186
82
Variable
behaviour
# BE
% BE
13/18
72
2/15 (13)
0/17
0
15/50
30
It is clear from Table 7.12 that the frequency of BE depends on the type
of predicate. Already in the earliest period, variable behaviour verbs (in
contexts without a particle) occur with BE less often (72 %) than do
change of location verbs (92 %) and punctual change of state verbs
(85 %). The number of variable behaviour verbs is small in the primary
corpus, but data from the secondary corpus point in the same direction.
When conservative writers like Gyllenhielm and Spegel show variation
between HAVE and BE, it tends to be with variable behaviour verbs, or
with change of state verbs; cf. (7:27) and (7:28) above (repeated as
(7:41) and (7:42) below).
(7:41)
a.
Jost Cursel […] och andra lifländare mera, som vore aff
Jost Cursel
and other Livonians more
who were of
godh villia medh redne
good will with
ridden
‘Jost Cursel […] and several other Livonians who had ridden along
out of free will’
(Gyllenhielm *1574:327)
166
One of the two examples of a gradual change of state verb with BE in Period III
is from Philomela; it is given in (i).
(i)
såm långe döder, bränd åg Askan
multnad är
who long
dead, burned and the.ashes decayed are
‘who has long been dead and burned, and the ashes have decayed’
(Philomela 1688:192)
This example might be a consequence of the verse; the line ends with the auxiliary
är ‘is’, which rhymes with bär ‘carries’ two lines before.
263
(7:42)
b.
haffver herr Nils Bielke […] rididt till
has
sir Nils Bielke
ridden to
‘has Sir Nils Bielke ridden to the duke’
(Gyllenhielm *1574:280)
a.
genom hwars wållande then pomerska arméen […] war
through whose cause
the Pomerian the.army
was
råkad
i
sådan decadence
happened in
such
decadence
‘who had caused the Pomerian army to fall into such decadence’
(Spegel *1645:5)
at
the andre, som i föllie
wore, hade råkat
that the others who in company were
had happened
i
så
stoor
olykko
in
so great misfortune
‘that the others, who were in the company, had fallen into such great
misfortune’
(Spegel *1645:139)
b.
herttigen
the.duke
In the most modern texts in the material, variable behaviour verbs never
occur with BE in the absence of a particle. Change of location verbs, on
the other hand, occur with BE in more than half of the cases also in the
third period. We can note that BE is somewhat more common with
change of location verbs (61 %) than with particle verbs (53 %) in
period III (although the number of examples with a particle is small). As
I pointed out above, it is the type of event (e.g. the presence/absence of
resP) rather than the presence/absence of a particle that is expected to
matter to the alternation between HAVE and BE.
While variable behaviour verbs only occur with BE together with
particles in the most modern texts in the material, examples with BE +
change of state verbs like bliva ‘become’ and ske ‘happen’ occur also in
the youngest texts, but less frequently than in the older or more conservative texts. In the edition of Kiöpings resa by Salvius (*1706), there
are no examples of bliva with BE; in the earlier edition of the text, there
are ten; compare the example in (7:43a) to the corresponding example in
the edition by Salvius in (7:43b).
(7:43)
a.
b.
så äro the blefne dijt beleed-sagade med Persianiske
so are they become there accompanied with Persian
‘so have they been accompanied there with Persian cavalry’
(Kiöping *1621:68).
så hafva de blifvit ledsagade
dit med Persiska
so have they become accompanied there with Persian
‘so have they been accompanied there with Persian cavalry’
(Salvius *1706:73)
Rytterij
cavalry
Riddare
cavalry
264
Examples with BE + a change of location verbs still occur in Salvius’
edition, and Salvius does not systematically change the auxiliary from
BE to HAVE in examples like (7:44).
(7:44)
a.
b.
Kalkoniske Hönss skulle wara komne i-från Calicuth
Calcuinian fowl
should be come from
Calcutta
uthi Indien
in
India
‘Calcuinian fowl should have come from Calcutta in India’
(Kiöping *1621:98)
at
Kalkoner skola vara komne ifrån Kalikut
i Indien
that turkeys
should be come from Calcutta in India
‘that turkeys should have come from Calcutta in India’
(Salvius *1706:105)
The loss of BE thus appears to involve a drop in the frequency of BE in
all cases, but a greater drop in some contexts than in others, followed by
the loss of BE in certain kinds of examples.
7.3.4. Varda and bliva
As mentioned above, Johannisson (1945:139–160) argues that the first
change with regard to HAVE/BE in older Swedish concerns the two
verbs varda and bliva which both mean ‘become’. I give the frequencies
of BE + participle of varda and bliva in my material in Table 7.13
below.
While the frequency of BE with varda or bliva taken together largely
patterns with the punctual change of state verbs (which also include
varda and bliva) in Table 7.12 above, we can note that there is a clear
difference between the two verbs: in the corpus, varda strongly prefers
BE (81 %), while bliva occurs more frequently with HAVE than with
BE (24 % BE).
TABLE 7.13.
The frequency of BE + participle of varda ‘become’ and
bliva ‘become’.
Text
# BE +
varda
% BE +
varda
# BE +
bliva
% BE +
bliva
# BE +
varda/bliva
Period I
Period II
Period III
TOTAL
4/4
6/9
7/8
17/21
(100 %)
(67 %)
(88 %)
81 %
7/12
7/19
7/56
21/87
(58 %)
37 %
13 %
24 %
11/16
13/28
14/64
38/108
% BE +
varda/
bliva
(69 %)
46 %
22 %
35 %
265
There are only 4 examples with HAVE (or HAVE-omission) + varda in
the primary corpus. Two of these are from Columbus; one appears to be
a modal perfect and the other is a comment on spoken Swedish (see
below). The plays by Börk, which otherwise have a low frequency of
BE, have 5 cases with BE + varda and one case where the auxiliary is
omitted.
The verb bliva is rare in Old Swedish, but becomes increasingly frequent in the Early Modern and Modern Swedish periods, at the expense
of varda. In the 17th and 18th century texts, varda is therefore a more
conservative choice than bliva. It is worth noting that Horn does not use
varda; her memoires are known to be one of the best sources for the
spoken language of the time that we have. Arguably, also the choice of
BE rather than HAVE is conservative, and part of the written, rather
than the spoken language. In fact, the comment by Columbus suggests
that the auxiliary is HAVE both with varda and bliva in the spoken language in the second half of the 17th century:
(7:45)
Swensken säger: han är bätter. eller han har blidt
bätter.
the.Swede says he is better or he has become better
han har wurdti bätter. Men huarföricke ok. han är
he has become better but why.not
also he is
bätter worden. rätt som warda, fieri, inte wore Svenska!
better became right as warda fieri not were Swedish
‘The Swede says: he is better or he has become [from bliva] better;
he has become [from varda] better. But why not also he is become
[from varda] better, as if varda, fieri, was not Swedish!’
(Columbus II *1642:93)
Columbus gives BE as a possible alternative to HAVE with varda, but
not with bliva; note that the comment itself concerns the choice of bliva
and varda and not the auxiliaries BE and HAVE. In his own writing,
Columbus does not follow what he says is the spoken norm, but tends to
use BE with varda and HAVE with bliva; cf. (7:46).
(7:46)
at
han af en Kung war worden en Privat-person, där
that he of a king was become a private-person where
hans Fader hade blijfwit af Privat-person
en Konung
his father had become of private-person a king
‘that he had gone from king to private person where his father had
gone from private person to king’
(Columbus I *1642:29)
In Swedish up to the 17th century, there is variation between individuals
and individual texts, but with regard to the alternation between HAVE
266
and BE, there is no reason to make a distinction between styles or
varieties. The difference between varda and bliva, and the comment by
Columbus, suggest that changes in the distribution of HAVE and BE
have led to beginning stylistic differences by the second half of the 17th
century. As pointed out above, the variation is considerable at the time,
and there are texts from the same time as Börk’s plays where the frequency of BE is many times higher. By choosing a corpus of informal
texts, I have tried to avoid differences that depend on style as far as
possible, but this is obviously difficult, given the available material. I
suggested above that the somewhat higher frequency of BE in the play
by Gyllenborg as compared to Börk’s Darius is due to the fact that the
latter lies closer to the spoken language. As far as I can see, the variation
is however generally tied to individuals rather than text types or
registers. The change in the distribution of HAVE and BE does not lead
to the establishment of two separate styles or registers, and, although BE
is often stylistically marked in Present-Day Swedish there are no text
types where BE is generally preferred to HAVE.
7.3.5. Conclusion
In this section, I have considered three (partly interrelated) factors that
could be expected to affect the alternation between HAVE and BE in
older Swedish. I have observed that while animacy or agency does not
appear to affect the choice of auxiliary, the presence/absence of particle
does, particularly in the younger texts. As expected, the type of event
has the clearest effects on the alternation, and more so with time. In the
oldest or most conservative texts in the material, the difference between
the different groups of unaccusative verbs is small; the normal construction involves BE. The frequency of BE with variable behaviour
verbs in contexts without particle dropped from 72 % in the first period,
to 13 % in the second period and 0 % in the youngest material. For telic
change of location verbs (including variable behaviour verbs with particle) the change was more modest: from 92 % in the first period to
61 % in the third period. Punctual change of state verbs fall somewhere
in between, with 89 % BE in the first period and 26 % BE in the third
period.
I have observed that while there is variation between individuals also
before the 17th century, the alternation between HAVE and BE is largely
determined by syntactic-semantic factors, and not style or geography.
When BE is restricted in the 17th century, on the other hand, differences
267
between texts can perhaps to some extent be explained as depending on
style, or the geographical origin of the writer, even in the rather homogeneous material included in the present study. In Present-Day Swedish,
BE tends to be ungrammatical, stylistically marked, or dialectal.
The results from the present study go partly against what Kytö (1997)
argues is the case when BE is lost in English mainly in the 18th and 19th
centuries. According to Kytö, change of state verbs (grow, become) “are
slower to adopt have than the motion verbs” like arrive and enter (1997:
36). This is unexpected also considering the (archaic) use of BE with
active participles in Present-Day English; cf. the examples in (7:47)
where change of location verbs (marginally) can occur in the complement of BE, whereas a change of state verb like become does not.
(7:47)
a. She is gone.
b. The time is come.
c. * She is become happy.
Another of Kytö’s findings is more in line with my results. She notes
that the frequency of the verbs come and go with HAVE is lower than
for other verbs throughout the period 1350–1990; in the 18th century
33 % (37/113) of the cases with come or go involve HAVE, compared
to 58 % (158/274) of the other verbs (1997:45, Table 13). In fact, Kytö
(1997:35) states that non-directional unaccusatives were the first to be
used with HAVE when BE was lost in English; these include verbs like
begin, happen and occur. By the end of the 17th century, these verbs
almost exclusively occur with HAVE (see Kytö 1997:26, Table 6). It
seems likely that her results are a consequence of what verbs are included among the verbs of motion and how variable behaviour verbs are
treated. There is also a possibility that past counterfactuals and the restrictions on experiential perfects skew the result somewhat; Kytö does
not distinguish counterfactuals from true past perfects. In Kytö’s material, HAVE is more common in pluperfects with change of location verbs
than with change of state verbs (see her Appendix 3); this might suggest
that change of location verbs (as defined by Kytö) were more common
in past counterfactuals.
In the following sections, I consider BE in Present-Day Swedish, and
the varying properties of unaccusative verbs.
268
7.4. Unaccusatives in the complement of BE
Although there was (limited) stylistic variation during the period when
BE became more restricted in Swedish, the change is clearly not only
stylistic. On the contrary, there are contexts where BE was grammatical
in older Swedish but is impossible in Present-Day Swedish, independently of style. Moreover, even if the construction with BE + active
participle often is stylistically marked, and infrequent in modern corpora, the restrictions are quite systematic.
In this section, I investigate what distinguishes the group of unaccusatives that are grammatical in the complement of BE in Present-Day
Swedish. In order to show that the (im)possibility of BE is not purely
idiosyncratic, I give several examples from each verb group. I disregard
target state participles since they are always grammatical with BE; cf.
(7:48).
(7:48)
a.
b.
c.
d.
Boken
är (fortfarande) förkommen.
the.book is still
lost
‘The book is (still) missing.’
Han är (fortfarande) försvunnen.
he is still
disappeared
‘He is (still) missing.’
Han är (fortfarande) avsvimmad.
he is still
off.fainted
‘He is (still) unconscious.’
TV:n är (fortfarande) död.
the.TV is still
dead
‘The TV is (still) dead.’
BE is more common in some areas of Sweden (particularly in Southern
Sweden); here, variation between speakers is largely disregarded. For
comparison, I consider also the restrictions on BE in Norwegian Bokmål
and Icelandic.
7.4.1. BE in Present-Day Swedish
As we have already seen, BE is not restricted to target state participles in
Present-Day Swedish; cf. (7:49) below.
(7:49)
a.
Deltagarna
är
(*fortfarande) anlända.
the.participants are still
arrived
‘The participants have (*still) arrived.’
269
b.
Ansökan
är
(*fortfarande) inkommen.
the.application is
still
in.come
‘The application has (*still) come in.’
Gradual change of state verbs are systematically disallowed in the complement of BE in Present-Day Swedish; cf. (7:50).
(7:50)
a. * Huset
är brunnet.
the.house is burned
b. * Plantan
är grodd.
the.seedling is sprouted
c. * Himlen är klarnad.
the.sky is cleared
d. * Hjulet
är lossnat.
the.wheel is come.loose
e. * Trädet är vuxet.
the.tree is grown
f. * Priset
är ökat.
the.price is increased
Some of the gradual change of state verbs form participles that are
ambiguous between a passive and an active reading. These verbs can
occur in the complement of BE, but only on the passive reading; cf. the
examples in (7:51), which are grammatical, but have a passive reading.
The example in (7:51a) is, for instance, incompatible with a reading
where the chocolate melted by itself.
(7:51)
a.
b.
c.
Chokladen
är redan smält.
the.chocolate is already melted
‘The chocolate has already been melted.’
Mängden
är minskad till hälften.
the.quantity is reduced
to
the.half
‘The quantity has been reduced to one half.’
Smöret
är redan klarat.
the.butter is already cleared
‘The butter has already been cleared.’
I have noted one exception, namely avdunsta ‘evaporate’, which is
sometimes marginally possible in the complement of BE; see (7:52a). It
is noteworthy that this example involves some human control, and it is,
in fact, only possible in the context of e.g. a laboratory or kitchen; cf.
(7:53), which is ungrammatical.
270
(7:52)
(7:53)
Låt det brinna tills spriten
är avdunstad.
let it
burn
until the.alcohol is evaporated
‘Let it burn until the alcohol has evaporated.’
(Google)
* En del av vattnet
i sjön
är avdunstat.
a
part of
the.water in the.lake is evaporated
Intended: ‘Part of the water of the lake has already evaporated.’
Also telic change of state verbs are ungrammatical with BE in PresentDay Swedish; cf. (7:54). Hence, telicity (the presence of resP) is not
sufficient for an intransitive verb to be possible in a resultative with BE.
(7:54)
a. * Andra akten är börjad.
second the.act is begun
b. * Han är svimmad.
he is fainted
c. * Han är drunknad.
he is drowned
d. * Hon är vaknad.
she is awaken
e. * Han är bliven misstänksam.
he is become suspicious
f. * Något
är skett.
something is happened
g. * Bomben är exploderad.
the.bomb is exploded
A particle does not make change of state verbs grammatical in the complement of BE; cf. (7:55).
(7:55)
a. * Huset
är uppbrunnet.
the.house is up.burned
b. * Den är söndergången.
it
is asunder.gone
c. * Hans blyghet är bortvuxen.
his shyness is away.grown
Again, passive and active participles pattern differently. When a passive
reading occasionally is possible, change of state verbs are grammatical
with BE; cf. (7:56a), which is ungrammatical, to (7:56b), which is wellformed, but has a passive reading.
(7:56)
a. * En storm är uppblåst.
a
storm is up.blown
Intended: ‘A storm has arisen.’
271
b.
Alla ballonger är
redan uppblåsta.
all balloons are already up.blown
‘All balloons have already been inflated.’
There are, however, a number of exceptions to the restriction on BE
with telic change of state verbs. Often, these are limited to fixed expressions; cf. the idiomatic examples in (7:57) and the slightly modified,
ungrammatical examples in (7:58).
(7:57)
a.
b.
c.
(7:58)
Det må vara hänt.
that may be happened
‘All right, then.’
Användningen är stelnad i sin
form.
the.use
is set
in POSS.REFL form
‘This use has become fixed in form.’
Han är uppvuxen i Stockholm.
he is up.grown in Stockholm
‘He grew up in Stockholm.’
a. * Det kan vara hänt.
it
can be happened
b. * Chokladen
är stelnad i sin form.
the.chocholate is set
in POSS.REFL form
c. * Trädet är uppvuxet i trädgården.
the.tree is up.grown in the.garden
Also the verb uppstå ‘resurrect’ occurs in the complement of BE; cf.
(7:59). This is possibly a remnant due to influence from the language of
the 16th century Bible.
(7:59)
Han är uppstånden från de döda.
he is resurrected from the dead
‘He has resurrected from the dead.’
SAG (1999, 2:606) gives the example in (7:60) as grammatical, but
marked; I judge it as ungrammatical.
(7:60)
Elden är slocknad.
the.fire is died.down
‘The fire has died down’
(SAG 1999, 2:606)
Some participles meaning ‘dead’ are available in the complement of BE,
although they have an archaic flavour; cf. (7:61).
272
(7:61)
a.
b.
Han är omkommen.
he is deceased
‘He is deceased.’
Han är stupad i strid.
he is fallen in battle
‘He has fallen in battle.’
In the historical records, the frequency of BE was higher with change of
location verbs than with other verbs. In Present-Day Swedish, change of
location verbs like anlända ‘arrive’ are generally possible in the complement of BE; cf. (7:62).
(7:62)
a.
b.
c.
De är
redan anlända.
they are already arrived
‘They have already arrived’
Båten
är
redan ankommen till bryggan.
the.boat is
already arrived
to
the.wharf
‘The boat has already arrived’
Han är nyligen återvänd från England.
he is recently returned from England
‘He has recently returned from England.’
Particle verbs expressing change of location are also grammatical with
BE; cf. (7:63).167
(7:63)
a.
b.
c.
d.
167
Frida är hitflyttad
från Stockholm.
Frida is here.moved from Stockholm
‘Frida has moved here from Stockholm.’
Hon är hitrest
från Uppsala.
she is here.travelled from Uppsala
‘She has come here from Uppsala.’
Hon är nyligen hemkommen från Kina.
she is recently home.come from China
‘She has recently come home from China.’
Han är uppstigen ur
badet.
he is up.risen out.of the.bath
‘He has stepped out of the bath.’
Participles of the verb gå ‘go, walk, leave’ are more marked with BE than
participles of komma ‘come’. Most likely, this is connected to the form gången,
which only marginally has a change of location interpretation (disregarding geographical variation). Many of the participial forms of gå + particle have specialized
(nominal) readings; cf. ingång ‘entrance’, utgång ‘exit’, hemgång ‘getting home in a
card game’, bortgång ‘demise’.
273
The verbs komma ‘come’ and resa ‘travel’ can occur in the complement
of BE also without a particle; see (7:64).168
(7:64)
a.
b.
Han är rest
till Stockholm med buss.
he is travelled to
Stockholm with bus
‘He has gone to Stockholm by bus.’
Han är kommen med tåget.
he is come
with train
‘He has come by train.’
Variable behaviour verbs without a particle are, on the other hand,
generally illicit in the complement of BE. The examples in (7:65) only
have a passive reading, and the examples in (7:66) are degraded or ungrammatical. Recall that this kind of examples was the first to disappear
from the historical records.
(7:65)
a.
b.
(7:66)
Han är flyttad till Stockholm.
he is moved to
Stockholm
‘He has been moved to Stockholm.’ (not ‘He has moved to
Stockholm.’)
Båten/*han är seglad till Gotland.
the.boat/he is sailed to
Gotland
‘The boat/*he has been sailed to Gotland.’ (not ‘The boat has sailed
to Gotland.)
a. * Han
he
b. * Han
he
är
is
är
is
sprungen till grannen.
run
to
the.neighbour
cyklad till affären.
cycled to
the.store
The grammaticality of the different types of verbs in the complement of
BE can be assumed to parallel the historical development. Examples
with gradual change of state verbs were scarce in the investigated texts,
but given that there is no variation in Present-Day Swedish, it seems
likely that these verbs became ungrammatical with BE before punctual
change of state verbs; as noted, there is some variation with BE and telic
change of state verbs. Variable behaviour verbs in contexts without a
particle occurred with BE less frequently in the historical material than
other verbs, and they are ungrammatical with BE in Present-Day Swed-
168
The examples in (7:64) are more natural with the adverbials than without. In the
absence of the adverbial, an expression with BE + a particle verb or a locative
adverb is much preferred.
274
ish. In the following section, we will see that the data from Norwegian
and Icelandic point in a similar direction.
7.4.2. Norwegian Bokmål and Icelandic
As noted, BE is less restricted in Present-Day Icelandic and Norwegian
than in Swedish.169 In both Norwegian and Icelandic, gradual change of
state verbs are often allowed in the complement of BE, although there is
some variation; see the Norwegian examples in (7:67) and the Icelandic
examples in (7:68).
(7:67)
a.
(7:68)
a.
169
Selv om snøen
er smeltet, og vi
ikke tenker så
even if
the.snow is melted and we not think
so
mye
på
ski
much about ski
‘Even though the snow has melted, and we don’t think so much about
skiing’
(Google)
b. Nærbø Maskinforretning som med hans og gode
Nærbø machine.shop
which with his and good
medarbeideres innsats er vokst til en stor og sterk bedrift.
co-workers’ effort is grown to a large and strong company
‘Nærbø machine shop which with the effort of him and good
coworkers has grown to be a large and strong company’
(BOKMÅL)
c. Vinden
er
økt.
the.wind is
increased
‘The wind has increased.’
(Google)
d. * Hun er rødmet.
she is blushed
Vatnið
er nýlega frosið.
the.water is recently frozen
‘The water has recently frozen.’
b. Grasið
er gulnað.
the.grass is yellowed
‘The grass has turned yellow.’
c. Snjórinn er nýlega bráðnaður.
the.snow is recently melted
‘The snow has recently melted.’
d. * Það er blánað.
it
is turned.blue
For Icelandic, see also Yamaguchi & Pétursson (2003).
275
Telic change of state verbs are more generally possible with BE, both in
Norwegian and Icelandic; cf. Norwegian in (7:69) and Icelandic in
(7:70).
(7:69)
a.
b.
c.
d.
e.
(7:70)
a.
b.
c.
d.
Han er druknet.
he is drowned
‘He has drowned.’
Han er blitt
mistenksom.
he is become suspicious
‘He has become suspicious.’
Andre akt er begynt.
second act is begun
‘The second act has begun.’
Hun er våknet.
she is awaken
‘She has woken up.’
Bomben er eksplodert.
the.bomb is exploded
‘The bomb has exploded.’
Barnið
er drukknað.
the.child is drowned
‘The child has drowned.’
Þetta er orðið fínt.
this is become fine
‘This has become fine.’
Sumarið
er byrjað.
the.summer is begun
‘Summer has begun.’
Jón
er sofnaður.
John
is fallen.asleep
‘John has fallen asleep.’
As expected, also change of location verbs are grammatical in the complement of BE; cf. Norwegian in (7:71) and Icelandic in (7:72).
(7:71)
a.
b.
c.
Hun er kommet.
she is come
‘She has come’
Hun er reist.
she is travelled
‘She has gone.’
Hun er dratt til Stockholm.
she is gone to Stockholm
‘She has gone to Stockholm.’
276
(7:72)
a.
Ég er alveg komin.
he is just
come
‘He has just come.’
Hún er farin til Stokkhólms.
she is gone to Stockholm
‘She has gone to Stockholm.’
b.
In both Norwegian and Icelandic, variable behaviour verbs are possible
with BE both with particles and PPs; see Norwegian in (7:73) and Icelandic in (7:74). In Norwegian, examples like these tend to be marked.
(7:73)
a.
(7:74)
a.
?
Hun er flyttet hjem
til Oslo.
she is moved home to Oslo
‘She has moved home to Oslo.’
b. ? De er
syklet til stranden
they are cycled to the.beach
‘They have cycled to the beach.’
b.
Hann er floginn heim.
he
is flown home
‘He has flown home.’
Örninn
er
floginn til Danmerkur
the.eagle is
flown to Denmark
‘The eagle has flown to Denmark and the stag has run to Holland.’
(Google)
There is, however, some variation in both languages, and not all PPs
make a variable behaviour verb possible in the complement of BE; cf.
Norwegian in (7:75) and Icelandic in (7:76).
* Han er løpt til naboen.
he is run to the.neighbour
(7:75)
(7:76)
a.
b.
Jón er genginn út/*frá Selfossi.
John is gone
out/from Selfoss
‘John has gone out.’
Jón er flanaður út/*úr stöðinni
John is rushed out/from the.station
‘John has run out/*from the station.’
(Yamaguchi & Pétursson 2003:339)
There are two possible reasons for this variation. First, we could assume
that certain prepositions can associate with res, just like particles do;
Ramchand (2008a) suggests that this is the case with English to (cf. also
Folli & Ramchand 2005). Secondly, even with prepositions that do not
277
associate with res, we expect some variation, given that some verbs
have active participles in the complement of BE in Icelandic and in
Norwegian also in the absence of resP (cf. the gradual change of state
verbs above).
Both Norwegian and Icelandic differ from Present-Day Swedish also
with respect to the frequency of the construction with BE; in Swedish,
BE is, as noted, rare and stylistically marked. In Icelandic, on the other
hand, BE is the unmarked choice for the resultative reading (as in Old
Norse and older Swedish). Perfects with HAVE and a participle of an
unaccusative verb tend to have an experiential reading; the HAVEperfect in (7:77a) is degraded or awkward on the resultative reading, and
the construction with BE in (7:77b) is much preferred (see e.g. Jónsson
1992).
(7:77)
a. # Jón hefur komið til Boston núna.
John has
come to Boston now
‘John has arrived in Boston now.’
b. Jón er kominn til Boston núna.
John is come to Boston now
‘John has arrived in Boston now.'
In Norwegian Bokmål, resultative perfects with HAVE + unaccusative
verbs are less marked than in Icelandic, but still sometimes less frequent
than the construction with BE.170 In the Oslo corpus of (written) Bokmål, 66 % (1232/1859) of the examples with present tense HAVE or BE
+ komme ‘come’ have BE.171 For bli ‘become’ the frequency of BE is
even higher, 87 % (4161/4804). In other cases, BE is the marked expression; this seems to be the general case with gradual change of state
verbs. Moreover, HAVE appears to be preferred with less frequent
verbs; 2 of 10 examples with våkne ‘awake’, and 1 of 10 examples with
eksplodere ‘explode’, have (present tense) BE in the Oslo corpus. There
is also a difference between written and spoken Norwegian. In the
NoTa-corpus of spoken Norwegian, the frequency of BE with the participles kommet and blitt is much lower than in the written corpus; only
170
While it is possible that the use of BE in Bokmål is to some extent influenced
by Danish, it should be kept in mind that still Bokmål is more similar to Old Norse
than to Present-Day Danish with regard to HAVE/BE; as we saw in chapter 5, the
construction with BE in Norwegian does not behave like the Danish BE-perfect with
respect to e.g. counterfactuals and adverbial modification.
171 Strings where something (e.g. the subject) intervenes between the auxiliary and
the participle are disregarded. Only examples with HAVE and BE in the present
tense are included; past counterfactuals should therefore not affect the results.
278
19 % (12/53) of the examples have BE with komme and 43 % (90/208)
with bli. The variation in the distribution of HAVE and BE in PresentDay Norwegian thus appears to be partly different from the variation in
older Swedish. As noted, komma occurs more frequently with BE than
bli does in older Swedish.
7.4.3. Summary
In Icelandic, all groups of unaccusative verbs (as defined here) are possible in the complement of BE, just as in older Swedish. With gradual
change of state verbs (växa ‘grow’) and variable behaviour verbs (rida
‘ride’), there is, however, some variation. Also in Norwegian, BE appears with all groups of unaccusatives, but is sometimes degraded or
marked with gradual change of state verbs and variable behaviour verbs
with PP complements. Finally, in Present-Day Swedish, only change of
location verbs are (systematically) possible in the complement of BE;
variable behaviour verbs are only possible when they incorporate a particle (which carries a res feature).
7.5. Different kinds of unaccusatives
In chapter 2 above, I pointed to some of the well-known mismatches
between different tests for unaccusativity. In the previous sections, we
have seen that different groups of unaccusatives can behave in different
ways with regard to BE, depending on language and period. In this
section, I look closer at the structures of the different kinds of unaccusatives.
7.5.1. (A)typical unaccusatives
Like the present study, the investigations by e.g. Sorace (2000, 2004),
Legendre & Sorace (2003) and Cennamo & Sorace (2007) suggest finer
distinctions among the intransitive verbs. With regard to the auxiliary
alternation HAVE/BE in perfects, native speakers appear to have more
uncertain intuitions for some groups of intransitive verbs than for other
groups in all languages investigated by Sorace, and both L1 and L2
learners acquire the choice of auxiliary earlier for some groups of verbs
than for other verbs (for the full details, see Sorace 2000 and references
279
cited there). The results are summarized in the Auxiliary Selection
Hierarchy in (7:78) below (from Sorace 2000:863); the feature specifications are from Legendre & Sorace (2003) (cf. Legendre 2007a:1525).
The verbs that are higher on the hierarchy most consistently (both crosslinguistically and within a language) form perfects with BE, and the
verbs at the bottom most consistently form perfects with HAVE.172
Although the data from the Scandinavian languages discussed in the
previous sections involve perfect-like constructions and not perfects,
they give additional support to the hierarchy. We have seen that the only
group of verbs that is systematically possible in the complement of BE
in Present-Day Swedish is the change of location verbs; they are at the
top of the hierarchy. In Norwegian and Icelandic, there is little variation
in the acceptability of the construction with BE and change of location
or telic change of state verbs, and more variation with regard to gradual
change of state verbs; the latter are lower on the hierarchy. Also the
historical data confirm the hierarchy; telic change of state verbs more
often occur with HAVE in the 17th century texts than change of location
verbs do (disregarding variable behaviour verbs). Stative verbs (exist)
and process verbs (sweat, work) never have active participles in the
complement of BE in the Scandinavian languages.
The groups of verbs in Sorace’s (2000) hierarchy receive slightly different feature specifications and structures with the tripartite verb phrase
structure in Ramchand (2008a). This gives us a way to account structurally for the difference between older and Present-Day Swedish, as well
as for the difference between Swedish, Norwegian and Icelandic. Stative
verbs like exist are distinguished from all other groups by lacking procP
in their structure. Following Ramchand (2008a), we can assume that
they include only initP. They can, however, differ (at least) with respect
to the properties of the complement of init. I leave these verbs aside
here.
172
As argued by Legendre & Sorace (2003), change of location verbs also have a
more consistent unaccusative behaviour with regard to certain other diagnostics, but
the cut-off points on the hierarchy can differ depending on language and diagnostic.
In French, participial constructions (e.g. reduced relatives and participial absolutes)
are possible with a superset of the verbs that form perfects with BE, and this set is
predictable from the hierarchy; the lower on the hierarchy the more variation, and
the more likely it is that a particular participial construction is ungrammatical.
280
(7:78)
The Auxiliary Selection Hierarchy (Sorace 2000:863; cf. Legendre &
Sorace 2003)
BE
Change of location (arrive, come)
Change of state
(appear, die)
(grow, wilt)
+telic; +/-agentive; +directed
change; +motional displacement
+telic; -agentive; +directed change;
-motional displacement
-telic; -agentive; +directed change;
-motional displacement
Continuation of
pre-existing state
(last)
+stative
Existence of state
(be, exist)
+stative
Uncontrolled
process
(sweat,
tremble)
-telic; -agentive; -directed change;
-motional displacement
Controlled process (swim, run)
(motional)
-telic; +agentive; +directed
change; +motional displacement
Controlled process (work)
(non-motional)
-telic; +agentive; -directed change;
-motional displacement
HAVE
Consider first the verbs that I have included among the unaccusatives
and which have active participles in the complement of BE in older
Swedish. Punctual change of state verbs like hända ‘happen’ and gradual change of state verbs like växa ‘grow’ differ with regard to the res
feature; see the lexical entries and structures in (7:79).
(7:79)
a.
b.
Lexical entry for växa ‘grow’: [proc]
[procP DP proc]
Lexical entry for hända ‘happen’: [proci, resi ]
[procP DPi proc [resP DPi res]]
Neither gradual nor punctual change of state verbs has initP in their
structure, and they can therefore typically be transitivized in English; cf.
(7:80).
(7:80)
a.
b.
He grows tomatoes.
He broke the stick.
281
These two groups are often considered the core unaccusative verbs.
Neither of them have active participles in the complement of BE in Present-Day Swedish.
According to Sorace’s hierarchy, telic change of location verbs like
anlända ‘arrive’ are the verbs with the most consistent unaccusative behaviour. These verbs are possibly agentive and express directed change:
they convey that the sole argument causes itself to move and end up in a
different place/state. In other words, change of location verbs involve a
full verb phrase and take a subject which is Initiator, Undergoer and
Resultee; see (7:81). Unlike change of state verbs, these verbs do not
transitivize in English; see the examples in (7:82).
Lexical entry for anlända ‘arrive’: [initi, proci, resi ]
(7:81)
(7:82)
a. * He arrived the boat.
b. * He travelled her to Stockholm.
Consider now motional or non-motional controlled processes like simma
‘swim’ and dansa ‘dance’, which are at the bottom of the hierarchy, and
which are generally regarded as unergative verbs. Both swim and dance
are eventive and take agentive subjects, and in the absence of e.g. a telic
PP or particle, they are atelic. In other words, they are both lexically
specified with init and proc features, and they both take a subject which
is Initiator as well as Undergoer; see the (identical) lexical entries in
(7:83) (and cf. Ramchand 2008a:71ff.).
(7:83)
a.
b.
Lexical entry for simma ‘swim’: [initi, proci]
Lexical entry for dansa ‘dance’: [initi, proci]
As pointed out in chapter 6, there are reasons to believe that these verbs
are (or can be) underlyingly transitive; dance takes an (incorporated)
Rheme complement, whereas swim takes an implicit or explicit Path; see
the examples in (7:84). Ramchand (2008:96) suggests that a verb like
swim and dance carries a nominal feature in addition to its verbal category features and that they therefore can identify the content of the complement in the absence of a cognate object or Path.173
173
Cf. also Hale & Keyser (2002:92), who suggest that swim and dance are not
formed by incorporation but that they have “nominal lexical semantics” which can
license the silent N in the complement of the verb.
282
(7:84)
a.
b.
Han simmade (några meter).
he swam
some meters
‘He swam (a few meters).’
Han dansade (en tango).
he danced a
tango
‘He danced (a tango).’
The difference between verbs like simma ‘swim’ and verbs like dansa
‘dance’ with regard to directed motion (see the feature specifications
given in the hierarchy above) can be assumed to be due to the (implicit)
complement; a Path like a few meters contributes directed change,
whereas a Rheme like a tango does not. The type of complement is,
however, not specified in the lexical entry. In fact, simma can take a
Rheme complement, and dansa can take a Path; see (7:85) where the
example with dansa expresses directed motion, whereas simma does not
necessarily do so.
(7:85)
a.
b.
Han simmade fjärilsim
(men rörde sig inte alls).
he swam
butterfly.swim but moved REFL not at.all
‘He did the butterfly stroke (but didn’t move at all).’
Han dansade hela vägen hem.
he danced all the.way home
‘He danced all the way home.’
Note that the difference between unergative verbs like simma or dansa
and telic change of location verbs like anlända does not lie in the presence/absence of initP or an external argument (Initiator), but in the
complement of proc: anlända involves resP, whereas proc in the structure of simma and dansa takes a Rheme or Path DP complement.
Now, as we have already seen, unaccusativity and unergativity are not
properties of a verb, but rather of the verb phrase. Therefore, when verbs
like simma ‘swim’ and dansa ‘dance’ are constructed with a particle that
lexicalizes res, they can display unaccusative behaviour; consider the
examples in (7:86) where participles of simma and dansa have an active
reading in the complement of BE (with an incorporated particle). In this
respect, they behave just like variable behaviour verbs like flyga ‘fly’ or
springa ‘run’.
(7:86)
a.
b.
Han är precis färdigsimmad.
he is just
ready.swum
‘He has just finished with the swimming.’
Han är precis färdigdansad.
he is just
ready.danced
‘He has just finished with the dancing.’
283
We can conclude that there are two requirements on active participles in
the complement of BE in Present-Day Swedish. First, either the verb
itself or an element (a particle) incorporated into the participle has to
carry a res feature; a telic PP is therefore not enough for BE to be
possible with variable behaviour verbs; cf. (7:87a) and (7:87b).
(7:87)
a. * Han är sprungen till affären.
he is run
to
the.store
‘He has run to the store.’
b. Han är hitsprungen.
he is here.run
‘He has run here.’
As noted, not all inherently telic verbs or particle verbs are possible with
BE; an init feature is also required in Present-Day Swedish. The verbs at
the top of Sorace’s hierarchy are distinguished from other unaccusatives
by being (possibly) agentive; the difference between unergatives like
work and unaccusatives like arrive can therefore not be understood in
terms of (non)agency. Recall from section 7.3.1 above, that agent-oriented adverbials are more common with BE than with HAVE + unaccusative in the investigated older Swedish texts.
7.5.2. Agentive unaccusatives
It is uncontroversial that variable behaviour verbs are agentive. In
English, verbs like run or travel can take so-called X’s way objects; see
(7:88). This is often taken to be an argument for the presence of an
external argument (see Levin & Rappoport Hovav 1995, Ramchand
2008a:23).
(7:88)
John ran his way into history.
(Ramchand 2008a:23)
There are several arguments for assuming that also change of location
verbs like ankomma ‘arrive’ and komma ‘come’ carry init features. As
noted, verbs like arrive fail to causativize in English; verbs like melt and
break which lack init features occur in the causative-inchoative alternation. Agent-oriented adverbials are possible with verbs like ankomma;
consider the examples in (7:89). Since arrive, unlike run, requires the
same DP to be Initiator, Undergoer and Resultee (cf. (7:81) above), X’s
way objects are not possible; see (7:90).
284
(7:89)
a.
b.
Han ankom avsiktligt
med flyg (och inte med tåg).
he arrived intentionally by plane and not by train
‘He intentionally arrived by plane (and not by train).’
Han reste
avsiktligt
med ett långsamt tåg.
he travelled intentionally on a
slow
train
‘He intentionally travelled on a slow train.’
* He arrived his way into history.
(7:90)
Unlike gradual change of state verbs like vissna ‘wilt’ or drunkna
‘drown’, change of location verbs like komma ‘come’ are grammatical
in imperatives; cf. (7:91) and (7:92).174
(7:91)
(7:92)
a.
Kom
då!
come then
‘Come, then!’
b.
Fly!
flee
‘Flee!’
a. # Vissna!
wilt
b. # Drunkna!
drown
174
Also verbs like drunkna ‘drown’ are OK in imperatives, but only when negated;
cf. (i).
(i) a.
b.
Drunkna inte!
drown not
’Don’t drown!’
Rodna inte!
blush
not
‘Don’t blush!’
Negated imperatives are thus not restricted to agentive subjects. More generally, the
possibility of imperatives is perhaps not as good a test for a syntactically present
agent as it is sometimes taken to be; examples like (ii) could perfectly well be
uttered by an impatient cook, and it expresses that the speaker is not in full control
of the melting rather than that the chocolate is (cf. e.g. SAG 1999, 4:715, Engdahl
2006).
(ii)
Smält, dumma choklad!
melt
stupid chocolate
‘Melt, stupid chocolate!’
285
The fact that change of location verbs can identify the init subeventuality does not mean that their subject is necessarily Agent. As initP is
understood here, its specifier is Initiator, and not Agent; this includes
causes, as well (see Ramchand 2008a:24; cf. also e.g. Rappaport Hovav
& Levin 2000). Moreover, that the clause subject is Initiator does not
mean that it lacks the typical ‘object’ properties; verbs like arrive have a
subject which is Undergoer and Resultee, as well as Initiator.
In chapter 2, I noted that verbs which are unaccusative according to
some diagnostics sometimes can occur in impersonal passives. Neither
gradual change of state verbs like gulna ‘turn yellow’ nor telic change
of state verbs are possible in impersonal passives; see (7:93).
(7:93)
a. * Det
there
b. * Det
there
c. * Det
there
gulnas
yellow.PRES.PASS
sjunks
i
sink.PRES.PASS in
skes
happen.PRES.PASS
i skogen.
in the.forest
havet.
the.sea
idag.
today
Variable behaviour verbs and verbs like komma ‘come’, on the other
hand, are at least marginally grammatical in impersonal passives; cf.
(7:94). This suggests that passivization requires an external argument
(an Initiator), as is standardly assumed. Since other passives necessarily
have a transitive structure (with one implicit and one explicit argument),
verbs like arrive, which are obligatorily intransitive, are restricted to
impersonal passives.
(7:94)
a.
Det skulle resas
till Stockholm och gås
there would travel.INF.PASS
to Stockholm
and go.INF.PASS
på teater.
on theatre
‘People would travel to Stockholm and go to the theatre.’
b. Det ankoms
och avrestes
hela
dagen.
there arrive.PRET.PASS and off.travel.PRET.PASS whole the.day
‘People were arriving and departing all day.’
c. Sedan anländes
det
till Arlanda och stods
then arrive.PRET.PASS there to Arlanda and stand.PRET.PASS
i
kö i
timmar.
in
line for hours
‘Then there was the arrival to Arlanda and the standing in line for
hours.’
As pointed out by Zaenen (1988) and Thráinsson (2007), verbs tend to
require an agentive reading in impersonal passives (see also Barðdal &
286
Mólnar 2000:129, and Hoekstra & Mulder 1990 for Icelandic and
Dutch, respectively). The verb rodna ‘blush’ and hosta ‘cough’ are
marginally possible in impersonal passives if the subject has some control of the event, but not otherwise; cf. the impersonal passives in (7:95)
and (7:96) below (the verbs rodna ‘blush’ is often assumed to be unaccusative, whereas hosta ‘cough’ is unergative or semelfactive).
(7:95)
a.
Det rodnas
(och fnittras
och tramsas).
there blush.PRES.PASS and giggle.PRES.PASS and act.silly.PRES.PASS
‘People are blushing and giggling and acting silly.’
b. * Det rodnas
alltid ofrivilligt
när
någon
there blush.PRES.PASS always involuntarily when someone
frågar.
asks
Intended: ‘People always blush involuntarily when someone asks.’
(7:96)
a.
Då hostas
det försiktigt för att få
then cough.PRES.PASS there carefully for to
get
‘Then people cough carefully to get them quiet.’
b. * Det hostas
vid förkylning.
there cough.PRES.PASS at
cold
Intended: ‘People cough when they have a cold.’
dem tysta.
them quiet
Dowty (1991:607f.) comes to the conclusion that telic verbs with nonagentive subjects (e.g. break) are “definitely unaccusative” and atelic
verbs with agentive subjects (e.g. dance) are “definitely unergative”;
agentive but telic intransitives (e.g. retire) and non-agentive but atelic
intransitives (e.g. exist) fall somewhere in between and show unstable
behaviour (cf. also Zaenen 1988). As we have seen, taking auxiliary selection as the primary diagnostic for unaccusativity instead, the typical
unaccusatives are not non-agentive telic verbs, but telic change of location verbs which can have an agentive subject and therefore (marginally)
occur in impersonal passives.
7.5.3. Summary
In Present-Day Swedish, only unaccusative structures with both initP
and resP (and procP) have active resultant state participles in the
complement of BE. Older Swedish patterns with Icelandic regarding
what verbs have active participles in the complement of BE: neither
resP nor initP is required. In other words, the loss of BE can be understood as the development of two restrictions on participles in the com-
287
plement of BE. First, a res feature (carried by the participial verb or an
incorporated element) became necessary; this excluded participles of
gradual change of state verbs and variable behaviour verbs without particles. Secondly, an init feature came to be required; this excluded also
punctual change of state verbs. The requirement of resP seems to appear
somewhat earlier than the requirement of initP; variable behaviour verbs
+ PPs are the first to disappear from the complement of BE, and with
regard to punctual change of state verbs, there is some variation also in
Present-Day Swedish.
7.6. A note on unaccusativity
In the standard treatment of the distinction between unergative verbs
like work and unaccusative verbs like grow, the former are assumed to
have an ordinary agentive subject, generated as external argument,
whereas the subject of the latter is non-agentive and generated as
internal argument of the verb. According to Burzio’s generalization
(Burzio 1986:185), only verbs that assign a theta role to an external
argument can assign structural accusative case to the internal argument.
The generalization is often captured by the assumption that accusative
case on verbal arguments depends on the presence of the head that introduces the external argument (i.e. v or init).
In Present-Day Swedish, the presence or absence of an Initiator
matters for the grammaticality of BE, but not in the way that is expected
given the traditional view: for BE to be possible with resultant state participles, an external argument (Initiator) is required; cf. the contrast between (7:97a) and (7:97b).
(7:97)
a. * Olyckan
är inträffad.
the.accident is happened
b. Barnen
är
hemkomna.
the.children are home.come
‘The children have come home.’
The conclusion, then, is either that auxiliary selection is not a diagnostic
for unaccusativity, or that the group of unaccusatives is characterized by
something other than having a non-agentive subject. In the following, I
take the latter to be the case.
As noted, it has sometimes been argued that unaccusatives are not
distinguished from unergatives in terms of agency, but that, instead, telicity is the relevant factor. The discussion dates back at least to the end
288
of the 19th century. In opposition to previous accounts of auxiliary selection in terms of agentivity, Paul (1902) states that the choice of perfect
auxiliary depends on the Aktionsart of the verb: the verbs that have
active participles in the complement of BE are the mutative verbs (i.e.,
telic verbs). This is also the position on which Johannisson (1945) bases
his investigation of the distribution of HAVE and BE in the older Scandinavian languages. Both Paul and Johannisson limit the discussion to
intransitive verbs; transitive telic verbs like open are not included, nor
are the transitive alternants of verbs like break. Telicity can clearly only
be a determinant of auxiliary selection if it is combined with some factor
relating to (in)transitivity (which in turn tends to be related to case and
to the presence of an external argument).
We have seen that the presence of resP has consequences for the
possibility of BE in Present-Day Swedish and in Norwegian, but not
necessarily in Icelandic and older Swedish. Folli & Harley (2006) point
out that gradual change of state verbs like increase can form perfects
with BE in languages like Italian also when they are atelic; see the
examples in (7:98) below. Hence, neither the presence of resP nor telicity necessarily distinguishes unaccusative from unergative verbs crosslinguistically. Given the well-known mismatches between different diagnostics for unaccusativity, and the cross-linguistic variation, it seems
clear that no single factor can be invoked to cover all cases.
(7:98)
a.
b.
La temperatura è diminuita per ore.
the temperature is diminished for hours
‘The temperature has decreased for hours.’
L’inflazione è aumentata per mesi.
the.inflation is increased for months
‘The inflation has increased for months.’
(Folli & Harley 2006:238)
The tripartite verb phrase that I have adopted from Ramchand (2008a)
opens for more fine-grained distinctions among the unaccusatives. I
have distinguished several groups of verbs that have active participles
with BE in the older Scandinavian languages, but which pattern in
different ways in the modern languages. It is important to remember that
a particular verb is not necessarily marked as unaccusative in its lexical
entry (i.e., there is no grammatical feature ±unacc); e.g. a verb like grow
is compatible with both unaccusative and transitive structures. Since
change of location verbs like arrive involve more lexical specification
than change of state verbs like grow, they are expected to have a less
variable (unaccusative) behaviour; this is confirmed by the Auxiliary
289
Selection Hierarchy in Sorace (2000). As we have already seen, different diagnostics can be sensitive to different properties; e.g. impersonal
passivization requires an external argument, whereas only verbs that
lack an init feature partake in the causative-inchoative alternation (at
least in the absence of morphological marking).
However, this does not automatically mean that the group of unaccusative verbs as a whole defies any generalization and that there is no
such thing as unaccusativity. The group of verbs that can be characterized as unaccusative (using one diagnostic or another) is in fact crosslinguistically rather stable. Largely the same group of verbs are grammatical in the complement of BE in older Swedish and in Present-Day
Icelandic, and these verbs form perfects with BE in languages like Danish. The question is, then, what unifies the group of unaccusative verbs,
if anything. In the following, I briefly address this question and point to
a possible answer that comes close to a standard account in terms of
case.
7.6.1. Decomposition and unaccusativity
In addition to the variable behaviour verbs (e.g. springa ‘run’), I have
identified three groups of intransitive unaccusative verbs which behave
in partly different ways with regard to BE in the Scandinavian languages
(and other languages). Again consider the lexical specifications of verbs
like växa ‘grow’, explodera ‘explode’, anlända ‘arrive’ and springa
‘run’ in (7:99) below. In (7:100), I give two of the possible structures
with which springa can associate; (7:100a) gives a transitive/unergative
structure (where the DP a kilometre is in the complement of proc), and
(7:100b) an unaccusative structure (where the subject is Resultee, as
well as Undergoer and Initiator).175
175
Following Ramchand & Svenonius (2002) and Ramchand (2008a), I assume
that the particle is base-generated in a PP or Particle Phrase, and that it moves to (or
is remerged in) res. In Swedish, movement of the particle is obligatory, while in
English it is not; cf. (i) and (ii).
(i) a.
b.
(ii) a.
b.
Han åt
upp kakan.
he
ate up the.cake
‘He ate up the cake.’
*Han åt
kakan upp.
he
ate the.cake up
He ate up the cake.
He ate the cake up.
290
(7:99)
a.
b.
c.
d.
(7:100) a.
b.
Lexical entry for växa ‘grow’: [proc]
Lexical entry for explodera ‘explode’: [proci, resi ]
Lexical entry for anlända ‘arrive’: [initi, proci, resi ]
Lexical entry for springa ‘run’: [initi, proci,]
Han sprang en kilometer.
he ran
a
kilometre
[initP DPi init [procP DPi proc [DPj]]]
Han sprang in.
he ran
in
[initP DPi init [procP DPi proc [resP DPi res [PP]]]]
Verbs like arrive have the most stable unaccusative behaviour; verbs
like grow and variable behaviour verbs are the least stable (cf. Sorace’s
Auxiliary Selection Hierarchy in section 7.5.1 above).176 For all four
groups of verbs, the subject is base-generated in an internal argument
position: the subject is either Undergoer or Resultee, or both. This is
true also for change of location verbs where the subject is Undergoer
and Resultee, as well as Initiator. In this respect, the Unaccusative
Hypothesis is preserved in the present system.
It has sometimes been suggested that unaccusative structures involve
an embedded small clause structure which can, but need not, provide a
telos (see Moro 1997, Hoekstra 1999 and Folli & Harley 2006). Among
other things, this accounts for the unaccusative behaviour of the stative
verb BE; see the structure in (7:101) (where the small clause is represented as XP). As mentioned, BE forms a perfect with the auxiliary BE
in German; see (7:102).
(7:101)
He is tired.
is [XP he X [AP tired]]
(7:102)
Er ist müde gewesen.
he is
tired
been
‘He has been tired.’
However, a subject generated in a predicate in the complement of a
verbal head is not sufficient to make a verb unaccusative. Also transitive
176
Considering the cross-linguistic data, this is not entirely true; stative verbs like
exist are the group of intransitives that have the most variable behaviour (cf. e.g.
Sorace 2000, 2004). In Italian, they form perfects with BE, in German and Danish
they do not (with the exception of the verb BE).
291
and unergative verbs can have subjects that are base-generated below
init; consider dance in (7:103).177
(7:103) a.
b.
He danced.
[initP he dance [procP he dance [NP dance]]]
He danced a jig.
[initP he dance [procP he dance [DP a jig]]]
Given that unergative verbs are implicitly transitive, we could assume
that unaccusatives are the only truly intransitive verbs: either they involve just proc and its one argument, or several coindexed verbal heads
and one argument. Since English has a silent init head, verbs like grow
can be transitivized as in (7:104) (cf. above). In transitive contexts, grow
lacks the properties of an unaccusative.
He grows tomatoes.
(7:104)
Verbs like växa ‘grow’ can license an accusative DP also in Swedish;
växa can occur with a Path DP as in (7:105a). Also in this case, växa behaves like a transitive verb and can have a passive reading in prenominal
position; see (7:105b).
(7:105) a.
b.
Han växte en centimeter.
he grew
a
centimeter
Han gladde sig åt
varje
växt
centimeter.
he rejoiced REFL for every grown centimeter
‘He was happy about every grown centimeter.’
We can assume that gradual change of state verbs like växa ‘grow’ and
kallna ‘cool’ either take a Path complement or an (implicit) small clause
complement which defines a scale (and a telos); only in the latter case
do they show unaccusative behaviour.178 In this respect, gradual change
of state verbs resemble variable behaviour verbs; although only the
latter involve an Initiator, both groups of verbs show unstable unaccusative behaviour cross-linguistically. When resP is missing, variable behaviour verbs can take an (implicit) Path DP with accusative case. They
then behave like ordinary transitive verbs, just like växa; consider the
contrast between (7:106) and (7:107).
177
Since dance in (7:103) does not introduce a referential object, I represent the
complement of proc as NP, rather than DP (following Ramchand 2008a:96).
178 In the case of deadjectival verbs, the scale is defined by the base adjective, e.g.
kall ‘cold’ (see chapter 6, section 6.2.1 above). With verbs like växa, it is possible
that the scale is defined in relation to the subject.
292
(7:106) a.
b.
(7:107) a.
b.
Mannen sprang en kilometer.
the.man ran
a
kilometre
’The man ran a kilometre.’
den sprungna kilometern/*mannen
the run
the.kilometre/the.man
‘the run kilometre/*man’
Mannen sprang hit (*en kilometer).
the.man ran
here a
kilometre
‘The man ran here/*a kilometre.’
den hitsprungna
mannen/*kilometern
the here.run
the.man/the.kilometre
‘the man/*kilometre who ran here’
Path DPs are generally impossible with verbs like arrive; consider the
examples in (7:108).
(7:108) a.
b.
Båten
anlände (*kilometern) till bryggan.
the.boat arrived the.kilometre to
the.wharf
‘The boat arrived (*the kilometre) to the wharf.’
den nyligen anlända båten/*kilometern
the recently arrived the.boat/the.kilometre
‘the recently arrived boat/*kilometre’
In other words, it is possible that the relevant difference between change
of location verbs like arrive and variable behaviour verbs like springa
‘run’ with regard to unaccusativity is not the presence/absence of initP
or resP (or telicity) but the presence/absence of an accusative DP. On an
account along these lines, what characterizes unaccusative verbs is not
that they cannot assign structural accusative case, but that they appear in
structures that lack an accusative DP.179 When unaccusative verbs ex179
Here, a structural accusative DP can be understood as a second (lower) argument of a verb; I leave aside the question how structural case should be understood,
and what the relevant features are (see e.g. Pesetsky & Torrego 2001, Sigurðsson
2003, and Platzack 2006b for discussion). Note that it would be a mistake to tie unaccusative behaviour to the absence of a morphologically accusative argument; the
restriction is instead on the number of structurally case-marked arguments of the
verb. Hence, verbs with dative objects in Icelandic examples like (i) are not unaccusative, and they therefore have passive and not active participles in the complement of BE; cf. (ii) and (iii).
(i)
Skipstjórinn sökkti skipinu.
the.captain sank
the.ship.DAT
‘The captain sank the ship.’
(Zaenen & Maling 1984:141)
293
press causation, it is therefore necessarily the question of internal (as
opposed to external) causation (cf. Rappoport Hovav & Levin 2000).
Reflexive verbs select BE in languages like Italian and French, but
not in languages like German and Danish. This difference between
Romance and Germanic can be understood as a consequence of the difference in the properties of the reflexive pronouns; Romance reflexives
are clitics, while the reflexive pronoun in Germanic is a case-marked
DP, and reflexive verbs are therefore transitive in Germanic (see e.g.
Schäfer 2008a and references cited there). With a non-clitic reflexive,
the auxiliary is HAVE also in Italian; cf. (7:109a) which involves the reflexive clitic and (7:109b) which has the non-clitic reflexive (Perlmutter
1989; cf. McFadden 2007).180
(7:109) a.
b.
Giorgio si
*ha/è ucciso.
Giorgio REFL has/is killed
‘Giorgio has killed himself.’
Giorgio ha/*è ucciso sé stesso.
Giogio has/is killed himself
‘Giorgio has killed himself.’
(Perlmutter 1989:63, 96)
It is well known that there are also transitive verbs with unaccusative
behaviour (see e.g. Belletti & Rizzi 1988, Pesetsky 1995, Hoekstra 1999
and references cited there). Consider e.g. the verb piacere ‘please’ in
Italian; like intransitive unaccusatives, it forms a perfect with BE; see
(7:110).
(7:110)
(ii)
La musica è sempre piaciuta a Gianni
the music is always pleased to Gianni
‘The music has always pleased Gianni.’
(Belletti & Rizzi 1988:334; cf. Pesetsky 1995:50)
Skipinu
var sökkt af skipstjóranum
the.ship.DAT was sunk
by the.captain
‘The ship was sunk by the captain.’
(Zaenen & Maling 1984:142)
(iii)* Skipstjórinn var sökkt skipinu.
the.captain was sunk
the.ship.DAT
180 Some varieties of Italian have HAVE-perfects with reflexive clitics (see e.g.
Kayne 1993). This does not necessarily mean that reflexive verbs do not have an
unaccusative structure in these varieties, but rather that there is no one-to-one
correspondence between BE-perfects and unaccusativity.
294
In Swedish, the transitive verb nå ‘reach’ can have an active reading in
prenominal position; cf. (7:111a) and (7:111b).181
(7:111) a.
b.
Inga nyheter nådde oss på veckor.
no news
reached us in
weeks
‘No news reached us in weeks.’
de oss nyligen nådda nyheterna
the us recently reached news
’the news that recently reached us’
Similarly, in Dutch, dative psych-verbs like opvallen ‘strike’ form perfects with BE and have active participles in prenominal position; see
(7:112) (and see further e.g. Hoekstra 1984, 1999 and Bennis 2004).
(7:112) a.
b.
dat deze fouten mij opgevallen zijn/*hebben
that these errors me struck
are/have
‘that these errors have struck me’
de mij opgevallen fouten
the me struck
errors
‘the errors that struck me’
(Hoekstra 1999:73f.)
Hoekstra (1999) points out that verbs like opvallen behave much like
passives of ditransitive verbs, and it is likely that they have a similar
structure. That is, the object DP of dative phsych-verbs is not introduced
as an argument of a verbal head, but as an argument of a silent preposition or applicative head (cf. chapter 9 below). This is arguably also the
case with free datives (see e.g. Schäfer 2008a and references cited
there). As noted in section 7.1.2 above, free datives are possible with
unaccusative verbs like hända ‘happen’ and do not affect the possibility
of BE in older Swedish; consider again the examples in (7:8) (repeated
in (7:113) below).
(7:113) a.
Ähr eder ingen fara hänt
is
you no
harm happened
‘Has no harm happened to you’
(Messenius II *1579:15)
181
In other respects, nå does not behave like other unaccusatives. It can, for
instance, be passivized, as in (i).
(i) Vi nåddes
inte av några
we reach.PRET.PASS not by any
‘We weren’t reached by any news.’
nyheter.
news
295
b.
at
thet inte har gåt mig alt,
som thet skule
that it
not has gone me everything as it
should
‘that not everything has gone for me as it should have’
(Horn *1629:84)
Hence, we can assume that the restriction on unaccusatives is not on the
number of DPs in the structure, but on the number of DPs with structural case (or rather the number of DPs licensed by a verbal as opposed
to a prepositional head). The main differences between this and the standard view are that the absence of accusative does not correlate with the
absence of an external argument for all groups of verbs, and that it is the
absence of an accusative DP and not the absence of the external argument that matters for unaccusativity. Given that the structure of unaccusative verbs can differ, a particular diagnostic can target either the
group of unaccusatives as a whole (i.e. relate to (in)transitivity) or, as is
often the case, a subgroup of them (eg. those which include resP or
initP). In chapter 10, I suggest that the fact that there is only one DP argument in unaccusative structures means that no argument needs to be
demoted or be implicit in the absence of T (i.e. in past participial structures).
7.6.2. Summary
The account of unaccusativity sketched above comes close to the standard view, but without tying unaccusativity to the absence of an external
argument. I have tentatively suggested that unaccusative verbs, unlike
unergative verbs, do not have structurally accusative arguments (in the
absence of a preposition or applicative head), regardless of whether they
involve an external argument (an Initiator) or not. The variable behaviour of verbs like springa ‘run’ and växa ‘grow’ reflects the fact that
these verbs sometimes involve an explicit or implicit Path or Rheme DP.
It is expected that change of location verbs like arrive are the most consistently unaccusative verbs; they have more lexical specification then
e.g. grow, and they disallow Path DPs.
In effect, an account along these lines entails that unaccusativity depends on the complement of proc, in line with the suggestions by Moro
(1997), Hoekstra (1999) and Folli & Harley (2006). Note, however, that
the complement of proc is only relevant for verbs that have subjects
which are both Undergoer and Initiator, or which lack an init feature. In
other words, a transitive verb like öppna ‘open’ is not unaccusative, although it has resP in its structure. Many of the diagnostics for un-
296
accusativity target a subgroup of the intransitive verbs, e.g. verbs with a
res feature or, as in the case of impersonal passives, verbs with an init
feature.
A full account not only requires considerations of the nature of case,
but also further investigations of the distinction between scale and Path.
One complication is the different behaviour of DPs like sin väg ‘his/her
way’, en mil på väg ‘one mile of the way’ and en lång resa ‘a long
journey’, as noted in section 7.1.2 above.
7.7. Conclusion: the loss of BE and the establishment of HAVE
In this chapter, we have seen that the perfect with HAVE + participle of
unaccusative verbs is generalized in 17th century Swedish, and that the
perfect-like construction with BE consequently becomes more restricted. In a sense, the development begins as soon as the perfect with
HAVE emerges, i.e. already in the oldest Scandinavian sources. In the
initial stage of the development, HAVE-perfects are infrequent with all
groups of verbs (see chapter 4, section 4.3.3 above), but perfects with
HAVE + unaccusative verbs occur already in Old Scandinavian. We can
observe three different subsequent developments in the Scandinavian
languages. First, in Icelandic, the construction with BE often remains
the preferred expression when there is a choice between HAVE and BE;
perfects with HAVE + unaccusatives tend to have an experiential and
not a resultative reading. In Swedish and Danish up to the 16th century,
the use of BE was extended, but perfects with HAVE still occurred. In
Danish, the development continued and BE developed into a temporal
auxiliary, whereas in Swedish, the construction with HAVE took over.
It is well known that expressions with similar or overlapping semantics tend to establish different meanings and that there tend to be shifts
in their distribution. In Icelandic and Swedish, the constructions with
HAVE and BE can have different stylistic values, and one of them can
be preferred to the other depending on context, but it is not the question
of complete blocking. In both Swedish and Icelandic, there is a small,
but clear, difference in meaning between the HAVE-perfect and the
perfect-like construction with BE, and there are contexts where only the
former is allowed. In this respect, the loss of BE and the establishment
of HAVE with unaccusatives in Swedish is crucially different from the
changes that Kroch (1989 et seq.) have taken to involve competition between grammatical systems. The perfect-like construction with BE and
the perfect with HAVE are clearly not mutually exclusive within a
297
single grammar. In Danish, on the other hand, HAVE is generally impossible in perfects with unaccusative verbs; it is blocked by the perfect
with BE.
In Old Swedish, the variation in the distribution of HAVE and BE
does not appear to be ordered in varieties or styles. Even in the 17th and
18th century, when there are considerable differences between conservative and liberal writers, and some differences that presumably correlate
with a difference between the spoken and the written language, there is
no reason to talk about a BE-register and a HAVE-register; with few exceptions, there is variation between HAVE and BE within texts. In
Present-Day Norwegian, on the other hand, I noted a considerable difference in the frequency of BE between written and spoken language.
Moreover, as far as the (limited) investigation shows, frequent verbs like
komme ‘come’ and bli ‘become’ occur more often with BE than less
frequent verbs do. The lexical restrictions on participles in the complement of BE in Present-Day Norwegian are still largely what we expect
given Sorace’s hierarchy. The variation between speakers remains to be
investigated.
The investigation raises the question why BE is lexically restricted in
Swedish, and not in Norwegian and Icelandic, particularly since the use
of BE was less restricted in Old Swedish than in Old Norse (see chapter
5), and, when it comes to e.g. frequency adverbials, is still less restricted
in Swedish than in Icelandic. First, past counterfactuals are far more
common in Old Swedish than in Old Norse. In other words, in Swedish,
there is one fairly common context where only HAVE can be used.
Moreover, omission of temporal HAVE is possible in Swedish but not
in the other Scandinavian languages. As pointed out above, the frequency of BE begins to drop before auxiliary omission becomes frequent. However, BE was still (marginally) grammatical with punctual
change of state verbs at the beginning of the 18th century; this is the time
when auxiliary omission comes in fashion (see chapter 9 below). To
Karl XII (*1682), for instance, HAVE-omission is preferred to both BE
and explicit HAVE in subordinate clauses. Whether the two changes are
directly linked or not, they are symptomatic of the same development,
namely the establishment of the new standard. In this development,
features of the language spoken by higher social classes located in
Central Sweden often become norm (see e.g. Larsson 2004 and references given there). The fact that preference for HAVE is somewhat
greater in Central Sweden than in other areas (and in Danish), and that it
can be considered a feature of the language spoken by the Swedish
nobility, will by itself strengthen the position of HAVE.
298
The diachronic study of the loss of BE involves variation in two
ways. First, there is cross-linguistic and diachronic variation in the
groups of verbs which are possible in the complement of BE. Secondly,
there is variation in the distribution of the constructions with HAVE and
BE with a particular group of verbs. These two kinds of variation, or
aspects of the variation, are partly related: when the frequency of HAVE
increases, BE becomes lexically restricted. In section 7.3 above, I
observed a drop in the frequency of BE in the 17th century for all groups
of unaccusative verbs, but a greater change for some groups than for
others. In the oldest or most conservative texts in the material, the difference between the different groups of unaccusative verbs is small; the
normal construction is with BE. However, there is more variation in
examples with variable behaviour verbs than in the other groups. In the
youngest or least conservative texts in the material, variable behaviour
verbs do not occur in the complement of BE unless they incorporate a
particle. We could also note that a difference between punctual change
of state verbs and change of location verbs (including variable behaviour verbs with particles) develops with time; in the younger material,
the preference for HAVE is stronger in the former group than in the
latter, while in the older texts, there is no significant difference between
the two groups. In other words, the loss of BE involved a drop in the
overall frequency of the construction with BE, followed by a complete
loss of BE with participles lacking resP (and further frequency change)
and, in the next stage, by the loss of BE with participles lacking initP.
The present study lends support to Sorace’s (2000) Auxiliary Selection Hierarchy, as well as to the verb phrase structure proposed by Ramchand (2008a); the tripartite verb phrase allows us to capture, structurally, the different behaviour of the respective groups of verbs in
Sorace’s hierarchy. The lexical specifications (the category features) are
not so rigid that we need to assume that verbs with variable behaviour
have several lexical entries, or ‘unstable’ argument structure. Instead,
they enable us to make predictions about what verbs have the most or
the least variable behaviour. Gradual change of state verbs like växa
‘grow’ have little lexical specifications (a proc feature), and also show
variable behaviour. The fact that telic change of location verbs have the
most invariant behaviour is due to the fact that they have the most specific lexical entry. In fact, they are the only group of unaccusatives that is
lexically specified as intransitive (i.e. unaccusative), by having all three
category features, and requiring an argument which is Initiator and
Undergoer as well as Resultee.
299
In the next chapter, I look closer at the structure of the past participles
and the way it relates to the structure of the verb phrase.
300
8. On the structure of past participles
The development of the perfect involves the emergence of a temporal
auxiliary HAVE (and/or BE, depending on language) and a tensed participle, the perfect participle. In the previous chapters, we have seen that
there are different kinds of tenseless past participles, and that they can
have more or less in common with perfects. In chapter 6, I introduced a
distinction between three different kinds of stative participles (target
state, resultant state and progressive state participles) and briefly discussed the aspectual properties of resultant state participles. In the
previous chapter, I investigated the change in the construction with BE
in 17th century Swedish, that led to restrictions on the participles that are
possible in the complement of BE.
In this chapter, I look closer at the internal structure of the different
stative past participles and its relation to the structure of the verb phrase.
Section 8.1 concerns resultant state participles and the question of an
(implicit) Initiator in the structure of stative participles. In section 8.2, I
discuss the structure of target state participles, and some problems regarding the lexical restrictions on them. Section 8.3 concerns progressive state participles. In the end of the chapter, I return to the distinctions
between eventive and stative participles.
8.1. Stative participles and implicit arguments
Eventive passives can be taken to have an implicit argument in their
structure (see e.g. Bhatt & Pancheva 2006 and references cited there).
As noted in chapter 2, passives allow agent-oriented adverbials like
avsiktligt ‘intentionally’ to be associated with the implicit argument and
not with the surface subject; consider the contrast between (8:1a) and
(8:1b).
(8:1)
a.
Hon i blev
avsiktligt?i/j lugnad.
she became intentionally calmed
‘She was intentionally calmed.’
301
b.
Hon i blev
avsiktligti/*j lugn.
she became intentionally calmed
‘She intentionally got calm.’
Another argument that is often invoked is control into purpose clauses;
this is typically possible with passives but not with e.g. middles; cf.
(8:2a) and (8:2b).
(8:2)
a.
b.
Kakan
bakades
för att ha till eftermiddagsteet.
the.cake baked.PASS for to
have to
the.afternoon.tea
‘The cake was made to have with the afternoon tea.’
Kakan är lättbakad (*för att ha till eftermiddagsteet).
the.cake is easy.baked for to
have to
the.afternoon.tea
‘The cake bakes easily (*to have with the afternoon tea).’
(cf. Klingvall 2008:4)
As argued by Williams (1985) control into purpose clauses can, however, be possible in cases that can hardly be argued to involve an implicit argument; consider the example in (8:3).182
(8:3)
Grass is green to promote photosynthesis.
(Williams 1985:310)
Regardless of how we account for the restrictions or lack of restrictions
on purpose clauses, contrasts like that in (8:1) can be assumed to relate
to the presence/absence of initP. In the present framework, agentive or
causative semantics is introduced by init, and is therefore missing in the
absence of init. This does not necessarily mean that an implicit argument is present; Williams (1985:314) suggests that implicit arguments
are simply unlinked theta roles, and e.g. Alexiadou & Anagnostopoulou
(2004) assume that passives have an agentive verbal head that does not
introduce the external argument. However, if we want to maintain that
predicational structure always require a subject or that verbal heads always have a specifier (see Baker 2003), an implicit argument must be
present whenever the verbal head that introduces the initial state is.
182
In Swedish, on the other hand, purpose clauses are often degraded in passives
that allow agentive by-phrases and adverbs like avsiktligt ‘intentionally’, unless the
purpose clause verb is also in the passive; cf. (i).
(i) Kakan
bakades
för att ??bjuda/bjudas på
till
the.cake bake.PRET.PASS for to
serve.INF/serve.INF.PASS to
eftermiddagsteet.
the.afternoon.tea
‘The cake was made to be served with the afternoon tea.’
302
Here, I assume that syntactically active arguments are syntactically projected (cf. Bhatt & Pancheva 2006:581), and that, therefore, there is an
implicit argument present in the structures of passives that involves
initP.
However, since the external argument is not introduced directly by
the lexical verb in the decomposed verb phrase, there is a possibility that
certain passive or middle structures do not involve a demoted or implicit
external argument, but have a structure where the head that introduces
the external argument is missing altogether (cf. Kratzer 2000, Taraldsen
2006). In the following, I will assume that the participial stativizer can
attach at different levels in the structure (subject to cross-linguistic variation) and abort the derivation of the verb phrase; some stative participles therefore involve truncated verb phrases. In other words, not all
(stative) participles involve initP (and an implicit argument). Embick
(2004a) proposes an account of English passives along these lines
(framed in Distributed Morphology). He suggests that whereas eventive
passives involve the head that introduces agentivity, stative participles
with resultative aspect do not; instead they have a basically unaccusative
structure.
In Swedish, both stative and eventive passives allow agentive byphrases; consider the examples in (8:4) and (8:5). In the following, I
leave eventive passives aside and focus on resultant state participles.
(8:4)
a.
b.
c.
(8:5)
a.
b.
Hans död […] var befalld
av Gud
his death
was commanded by God
‘His death had been commanded by God’
(PAROLE)
att han var mordhotad
av en terroristgrupp
that he was murder.threatened by a terrorist.group
‘that he had been threatened to life by a terrorist group’
(SUC)
marken
var uppgrävd av djur
the.ground was up.dug
by animals
‘the ground had been dug up by animals’
(SUC)
Nybyggare och resenärer blev
överfallna av stråtrövare
settlers
and travellers became attacked by brigands
och mördare
and murderers
‘Settlers and travellers were attacked by brigands and murderers.’
(PAROLE)
Bägge blev
anmälda av sina styvdöttrar
both
became reported by their stepdaughters
‘both were reported by their stepdaughters’
(PAROLE)
303
Agent-oriented adverbials like avsiktligt ‘intentionally’ are possible in
stative passives; see (8:6).
Barnen
var avsiktligti kvarlämnade av sin
mori.
the.children were intentionally behind.left
by POSS.REFL mother
‘The children had been intentionally left behind by their mother.’
(8:6)
Moreover, both resultative manner adverbials and instrument adverbials
are available in stative passives; see (8:7).183 It therefore seems clear
that stative passives can include initP, at least in languages like Swedish.
(8:7)
a.
b.
Håret är (noggrant) kammat med luskam.
the.hair is carefully combed with nit.comb
‘The hair has been (carefully) combed with a nit comb.’
Dörren
är öppnad med nyckel.
the.door is opened with key
‘The door has been opened with a key.’
If initP and the external argument were completely missing from the
structure, passive resultant state participles would be expected to be compatible with a reading where the clause subject is the understood Initiator of the participial event (cf. Baker et al. 1989:224). This is not the
case for resultant state passives in the complement of BE in Swedish; cf.
(8:8a), which disallows the reading where the door opened by itself, to
the adjectival participle in (8:8b), which is silent about the cause of the
opening of the door. English patterns with Swedish; cf. (8:9).
(8:8)
a.
b.
Dörren är öppnad. (#Den går alltid upp av sig själv.)
the.door is opened it
goes always up by REFL self
‘The door has been opened. (#It always opens by itself).’
Dörren
är öppen. (Den går alltid upp av sig själv.)
the.door is open it
goes always up by REFL self
‘The door is open. (It always opens by itself.)
183
Manner adverbials are sometimes more generally taken to be attached to the
head that introduces the Agent (see Adger & Tsoulas 2004). As noted, certain
manner adverbials are excluded in stative passives also in the presence of an initP;
cf. (i).
(i) a.
b.
Håret
är kammat (*med svepande rörelser).
the.hair is combed with
sweeping movements
‘The hair has been combed (*with sweeping movements).’
Lisa är (*snabbt) kammad av frisören.
Lisa is quickly
combed
by the.hairdresser
‘Lisa has been (*quickly) combed by the hairdresser’
304
(8:9)
a.
b.
The door is opened. (#It always opens by itself.)
The door is open. (It always opens by itself.)
The conclusion is that passive and stative past participles like öppnad
‘opened’ involve a full verb phrase in Swedish, and presumably do so
also in English (where stative and eventive passives are not morphologically distinguished).184
German stative passive participles, on the other hand, seem to lack
initP (and therefore better correspond to Embick’s resultative participles). They are incompatible with agent-oriented adverbials and instruments; see (8:10) and (8:11).185
(8:10)
(8:11)
* Der Wein ist vom
Kellner eingeschenkt.
the wine
is
by.the waiter poured
Intended: ‘The wine has been poured by the waiter.’
(Rapp 2001:396)
a. * Der Safe war vorsichtig/vorsätzlich geöffnet.
the safe
was cautiously/on purpose opened
Intended: ‘The safe had been cautiously opened/opened on purpose.’
b. * Ihre Haare sind mit einem goldenen Kamm gekämmt.
her hairs are with a
golden
comb combed
Intended: ‘Her hair has been combed with a golden comb.’
(Anagnostopoulou 2003a:19)
The surface subject can be coreferent with the Initiator of the participial
event in German; the resultant state passive in (8:12a) is compatible
with a reading where the children have washed themselves, whereas the
eventive passive in (8:12b) is not.
(8:12)
a.
Die Kinder sind (*immer noch) gewaschen
the children are still
washed
i. ‘The children have washed themselves.’
ii. ‘The children have been washed.’
184
For English, the problem why agent adverbials are not possible in stative
passives remains.
185 Rapp (2001) distinguishes between by-phrases that characterize the result of the
event from proper agentive by-phrases. The former are possible in German stative
passives:
(i) Das Bild
ist von einem Künstler
the picture is
by an
artist
‘The picture has been painted by an artist.’
(Rapp 2001:396)
gemalt.
painted
305
b.
Die Kinder
sind gewaschen worden.
the children are washed
been
‘The children have been washed.’
(Kratzer 2000:ex. (6))
Verbs like ermordern ‘murder’, bombardieren ‘bomb’, erschiessen
‘shoot’ cannot form stative passives in German (Anagnostopoulou
2003a:20), while in Swedish they can; cf. German in (8:13) and Swedish
in (8:14).
(8:13)
a. * Er
he
b. * Sie
she
(8:14)
a.
b.
ist
is
ist
is
erschossen.
shot
ermordet.
murdered
Han är skjuten.
he is shot
‘He has been shot.’
Hon är mördad.
she is murdered
‘She has been murdered.’
I therefore conclude that stative participles with event implications
involve initP in Swedish (and English), but not in German. In fact, in
chapter 7 above, I observed that only unaccusative verbs that have an
init feature are allowed in the complement of BE in Present-Day Swedish. In other words, resultant state participles not only can involve initP
in Swedish, but they must.
8.2. Target state participles
Apart from the semantic distinction between resultant states and target
states, Kratzer (2000) makes a further division among stative participles;
she assumes that they can be either phrasal or lexical. Whereas resultant
state participles are always phrasal, some target state participles are
lexical and therefore lack event implications. In the following, I explore
the idea that the participial stativizer attaches at different levels in the
verb phrase, and that stative participles therefore can involve more or
less verbal structure. I assume that all target state participles are syntactically derived and phrasal, but that they can lack procP and therefore
need not express a process or transition. Given the tripartite verb phrase,
we expect to find evidence for participles that involve resP and not
306
procP and initP, participles that have both resP and procP but not initP,
and participles that include the full verb phrase; as we have seen, the
latter seems to be the case for resultant state participles in Swedish.
8.2.1. The structure of target state and resultant state participles
In this section, I consider three languages which have target state participles and resultant state participles with partly different properties,
namely Greek, German and Swedish. In 8.2.2, I look closer at the lexical
restrictions on Swedish target state participles.
8.2.1.1. Greek
Stative past participles can involve different suffixes in Greek, either the
suffix -tos or -menos; the suffix -tos is cognate to the Germanic past
participial suffix on weak verbs (English -ed, I.E. *-to-). Whereas
-menos-participles can occur with manner adverbials and agent adverbials, -tos-participles cannot; cf. the -menos-participles in (8:15) and
the -tos-participles in (8:16).186
(8:15)
a.
b.
(8:16)
Ta keftedakia ine prosektika tiganis-mena
the meatballs are carefully fried
‘The meatballs are fried carefully.’
Ta keftedakia ine tiganis-mena apo tin Maria
the meatballs are fried
by the Mary
‘The meatballs are fried by Mary’
(Anagnostopoulou 2003a:13)
a. * Ta keftedakia ine prosektika
the meatballs are carefully
b. * Ta keftedakia ine tigan-ita
the meatballs are fried
(Anagnostopoulou 2003a:13)
tigan-ita
fried
apo tin
by the
Maria
Mary
Anagnostopoulou (2003a) suggests that -tos-participles involve a bare
root embedded under an adjectival stativizer.187 Like Swedish stative
passives, -menos-participles can include initP (corresponding to VoiceP
in Anagnostopoulou 2003a).
186
Both -menos-participles and -tos-participles inflect like adjectives and have
functions similar to those of adjectives (Alexiadou & Anagnostopoulou 2008).
187 This is also the structure that Embick (2004a) suggests for adjectival participles.
307
Some, but not all, Greek -menos-participles can be modified by an
adverbial meaning still; see (8:17) and (8:18). Anagnostopoulou (2003a)
concludes that -menos-participles can have either a target state or a
resultant state reading.
(8:17)
a.
b.
(8:18)
a.
b.
Ta pedhia
ine akoma krimena
the children are still
hidden
‘The children are still hidden.’
Ta lasticha ine akoma fuskomena
the tires
are still
pumped.up
‘The tires are still inflated.’
(Anagnostopoulou 2003a:15)
To theorima ine (*akoma) apodedigmeno
the theorem is
still
proven
‘The theorem has (*still) been proven.’
Ta ruxa
ine (*akoma) stegnomena.
the clothes are still
dried
‘The clothes have (*still) been dried.’
(Anagnostopoulou 2003a:15)
Unlike resultant state -menos-participles, -menos-participles that are
modified by akoma ‘still’ disallow agent adverbials; see (8:19).
(8:19)
Ta lastixa itan akoma fuskomena
the tires
were still
pumped.up
‘The tires were still inflated.’
(Anagnostopoulou 2003a:22)
(*apo tin Maria).
by
the Mary
Alexiadou & Anagnostopoulou (2008) propose that Greek target state
participles either completely lack verbal structure or involve a verbalizer
v (corresponding to procP here); in the former case, they have the suffix
-tos, and in the latter case the suffix -menos. Resultant state participles
involve the head that introduces the external argument (initP) and are
also realized as -menos-participles. However, an initP is not obligatory
in Greek resultant state participles. Unaccusative change of state verbs
can generally form -menos-participles; see (8:20).
(8:20)
a.
b.
i
kerasia
ine anthismeni
the cherry.tree is
blossomed
‘The cherry tree has blossomed’
to
sidero ine sapismeno
the iron
is
rotten
‘The iron has rotted.’
(Alexiadou & Anagnostopoulou 2008:39)
308
The difference between target state and resultant state participles can
therefore not depend on the presence/absence of initP. Alexiadou &
Anagnostopoulou (2008:41) suggest that they instead involve different
stativizers; target state participles have a stativizer that denotes a target
state, whereas resultant state participles have a stativizer that denotes a
resultant state. On my account, the difference lies in the presence/absence of Asp (cf. chapter 6 above): resultant state participles have
bounded or resultative aspect whereas the target state reading is a consequence of the structure of the embedded verb (the presence of resP).
This gives us the stative participles in (8:21).188 Since resultant state
participles can be formed from any verb, they need not have initP and
resP in their structure; the structure depends on what verb they are
formed from.
(8:21)
a.
b.
c.
Target state -tos-participles:
[VoiceP Voice [resP res]]
Target state -menos-participles:
[VoiceP Voice [procP proc [resP res]]]
Resultant state -menos-participles:
[AspP Asp [VoiceP Voice [procP proc]]]
[AspP Asp [VoiceP Voice [procP proc [resP res]]]]
[AspP Asp [VoiceP Voice [initP init [procP proc [resP res]]]]]
8.2.1.2. German
As in Greek, some German target state participles can be modified by
resultative manner adverbials like schlampig ‘sloppily’, unlike adjectives; see (8:22) (and cf. (8:15) above). Kratzer concludes that target
state participles can involve verbal structure.
(8:22)
188
a.
Die Haare waren immer noch schlampig gekämmt.
the hairs were
still
sloppily
combed
‘The hair was still combed sloppily.’
b. * Die Haare waren schlampig fettig.
the hairs were
sloppily
greasy
Intended: ‘The hair was greasy in a sloppy way.’
(Kratzer 2000:(16))
Alexiadou & Anagnostopoulou assume that all participles are AspPs (cf.
Embick 2004a). I translate their Aspect to Voice, and only include an aspectual
phrase in the resultant state participles.
309
Whereas German resultant state participles always have event implications, target state participles do not necessarily do so. Therefore, we can
assume that there are three different kinds of stative participles in
German, as in Greek, but, unlike the Greek participles, none of them involves an initP; see the structures in (8:23) (and cf. (8:21) above).
(8:23)
a.
b.
c.
Target state participle I:
[VoiceP Voice [resP res]]
Target state participle II:
[VoiceP Voice [procP proc [resP res]]]
Resultant state participles:
[AspP Asp [VoiceP Voice [procP proc]]]
[AspP Asp [VoiceP Voice [procP proc [resP res]]]]
8.2.1.3. Swedish
As in Greek and German, target state participles do not allow agent adverbials in Swedish; see (8:24).189 Unlike the corresponding eventive
passive or resultant state passive, the example in (8:24b) is compatible
with a reading where the clause subject is the Initiator of the combing.
(8:24)
a.
b.
Sängen
är
fortfarande bäddad (*av
the.bed
is
still
made by
‘The bed is still made (*by Frida).’
Hon är fortfarande kammad i håret
she is still
combed
in the.hair
‘Her hair is still combed (*by Frida).’
Frida).
Frida
(*av Frida).
by Frida
Also instrument adverbials are incompatible with target state participles;
see (8:25). Hence, target state participles do not include initP in their
structure in Swedish, as resultant state participles do.
(8:25)
a.
Skatten
är
fortfarande nedgrävd
(*med spade).
the.treasure is still
down.digged with
spade
‘The treasure is still buried (*with a spade).’
189
Examples such as (i) with by-phrases like av polisen ‘by the police’ are grammatical despite the target state reading; the restriction on the by-phrase suggests that
it is not a true agent adverbial.
(i)
Stället är fortfarande stängt av polisen/*by Lisa.
the.place is still
closed by the.police/by Lisa
‘The place is still kept closed by the police/*by Lisa.’
310
b.
Hon är fortfarande kammad i håret
(*med guldkam).
she is still
combed
in the.hair with
golden.comb
‘Her hair is still combed (*with a golden comb).’
Resultative manner adverbials, on the other hand, can cooccur with fortfarande in a stative passive in Swedish, as in Greek and German; see
(8:26).
(8:26)
Lampan var fortfarande ordentligt släckt.
the.lamp was still
properly turned.off
‘The lamp was still properly turned off.’
However, the adverbial in examples like (8:26) does not state that the
process of switching off the light was careful, but rather expresses that
the light is still completely off. Similarly, an example like (8:27) could
be a comment on the hair of a newly bought doll, and it does not necessarily imply that there ever was an event of combing the hair.
(8:27)
Dockan var ordentligt kammad i håret
(när jag köpte den).
the.doll was carefully combed in the.hair when I
bought it
‘The hair of the doll was carefully combed (when I bought it).’
Hence, adverbials like ordentligt ‘carefully’ do not seem to require a
procP in Swedish, but may possibly modify resP. Consequently, the
possibility of modification with resultative manner adverbials does not
present evidence for a target state participle with a procP in Swedish.190
I therefore assume the structures for stative participles in Swedish given
in (8:28). Since resultant state participles can be formed from both telic
and atelic verbs they may include a resP, but they need not.
(8:28)
a.
b.
Target state participles:
[VoiceP Voice [resP res]]
Resultant state participles:
i. [AspP Asp [VoiceP Voice [initP init [procP proc]]]]
ii. [AspP Asp [VoiceP Voice [initP init [procP proc [resP res]]]]]
In the following, I will assume that these are the only structures for
target state and resultant state participles in Swedish. That is, the struc190
This calls into question the conclusion that German and Greek target state
participles have procP, which was based on the possibility of resultative manner
adverbials. As we will see in section 8.2.3 below, there are, however, additional differences between Swedish and German that can be accounted for, given the assumption that German target state participles may involve more structure.
311
tures in (8:29) below are missing in Present-Day Swedish. Note that the
assumption that Swedish target state participles lack procP does not
entail that target state participles are never used to convey that a process
or transition has occurred, only that the participle does not itself assert
process or transition.
(8:29)
a.
b.
c.
[VoiceP Voice [procP proc [resP res]]]
[AspP Asp [VoiceP Voice [procP proc]]]
[AspP Asp [VoiceP Voice [procP proc [resP res]]]]
We have seen that the construction with BE + active verbal participle is
restricted to unaccusatives with an init feature in Present-Day Swedish.
Thus, the loss of BE in the history of Swedish can be understood as the
loss of participles with either of the structures in (8:29). From the historical records it is impossible to know if all three structures in (8:29)
were possible at some stage. Particularly, there is no clear evidence that
the structure in (8:29a) actually was. I leave this question aside.
As noted, a few unaccusatives form target state participles also in
Present-Day Swedish; these have the structure in (8:28a) above. Since
the subject of unaccusative verbs is base-generated below initP (in specres), target state participles of unaccusative verbs have an active reading.
8.2.2. Lexical restrictions on target state participles
If target state participles include resP, they should be formed only from
verbs with a res feature, and, if there are no further restrictions on truncation than those imposed by the participial stativizer, it is expected that
all verbs that have a res feature form a target state participle.
Verbs like fylla ‘fill’, släcka ‘turn off’ and försvinna ‘disappear’ have
a res feature in their lexical specification and form target state participles, as expected; see (8:30).
(8:30)
a.
b.
c.
Tunnan
är fortfarande fylld med vatten.
the.barrel is still
filled with water
‘The barrel is still filled with water.’
Lampan är fortfarande tänd.
the.lamp is still
turned.on
‘The lamp is still turned on.’
Han är fortfarande försvunnen.
he is still
disappeared
‘He is still missing.’
312
d.
De är
fortfarande gömda och glömda.
they are still
hidden and forgotten
‘They are still hidden and forgotten.’
Given the structures assumed here, verbs like läsa ‘read’ and baka
‘bake’ which take Rheme objects are, on the other hand, predicted to be
ungrammatical in target state participles, since they lack res feature (cf.
chapter 6 above). As expected, the examples in (8:31) are ungrammatical with fortfarande ‘still’. The resultant state participles in (8:32), on the
other hand, are grammatical.
(8:31)
a. * Den här
this here
b. * Kakorna
the.cakes
(8:32)
a.
b.
boken
är fortfarande läst.
the.book is still
read
är
fortfarande bakade.
are still
baked
Den här boken
är läst två gånger.
this here the.book is read two times
‘This book has been read twice.’
Kakorna är
redan bakade. (Sätt på kaffet!)
the.cakes are already baked put on the.coffee
‘The cakes have already been baked. (Make some coffee!)’
Examples with Paths pattern with verbs with Rheme objects, as predicted. Hence, the example in (8:33a) is ungrammatical, whereas (8:33b) is
grammatical (but marked).
(8:33)
a. * Den värsta sträckan är fortfarande sprungen.
the worst the.stretch is still
run
b. Nu är den värsta sträckan äntligen sprungen.
now is the worst the.stretch finally run
‘The worst stretch has finally been run.’
Gradual change of state verbs lack res feature and are accordingly expected to be ungrammatical in target state participles. Considering the
participles in (8:34) and (8:35), this appears to be the case.
(8:34)
a.
b.
c.
Skeppet
är (*fortfarande) sänkt.
the.ship is still
sunk
‘The ship has (*still) been sunk.’
Räntan
är (*fortfarande) höjd.
the interest.rate is still
raised
‘The interest rate has (*still) been raised.’
Repet
är (*fortfarande) förlängt.
the.rope is still
lengthened
‘The rope has (*still) been lengthened.’
313
(8:35)
a.
b.
det (*fortfarande) gulnade
pappret
the still
yellowed the.paper
‘the paper which (*still) has turned yellow’
det (*fortfarande) kallnade kaffet
the still
cooled
the.coffee
‘the coffee which (*still) has turned cold’
As we have already seen, not all participles of inherently telic verbs
form participles that allow modification by fortfarande. Unaccusative
verbs like anlända ‘arrive’ or particle verbs like komma hem ‘come
home’, which are instantaneous and obligatorily bounded, and which
presumably carry res features, do not form target state participles; see
the examples in (8:36).
(8:36)
a. * Flyget
är fortfarande anlänt.
the.flight is still
arrived
b. * Frida är
fortfarande hemkommen.
Frida is
still
home.come
Two possibilities come to mind: either these verbs must project a full
verb phrase, or the resP does not express a state which can be modified
by fortfarande, but simply a goal or transition point. If the former is the
case, a verb like komma ‘come’ is expected to behave the same regardless of what kind of particle or PP it takes. Considering examples like
those in (8:37), this largely appears to be the case.191
(8:37)
a. * Den är fortfarande inkommen.
it
is still
in.come
b. * Boken
är fortfarande utkommen.
the.book is still
out.come
c. * Den är fortfarande hitkommen från Stockholm.
it
is still
here.come
from Stockholm
d. * Hon är fortfarande kommen från Stockholm med buss.
she is still
come
from Stockholm by bus
With resa ‘travel’ there is one exception, namely bortrest ‘away’ (lit.
‘away-travelled’); see (8:38). In fact, as pointed out to me by Elisabet
Engdahl, target state participles tend to express motion away from the
deictic centre; predicates like försvinna ‘disappear’ and resa bort ‘go
191
(i)
With bort ‘away’, komma forms an adjectival participle; see (i).
Han är ganska bortkommen.
he
is pretty away.come
‘He is pretty lost.’
314
away’ form target state participles, whereas återfinna ‘find, recover’ and
resa hem ‘go home’ do not. The type of target state does therefore appear to have some effect on the possibility of target state participles.
(8:38)
a. * Han är fortfarande hemrest.
he is still
home.travelled
b. * Han är fortfarande hitrest.
he is still
here.travelled
c. * Han är fortfarande avrest.
he is still
off.travelled
d. * Hon är fortfarande rest
till
she is still
travelled to
e. Han är fortfarande bortrest.
he is still
away.travelled
‘He is still away.’
Stockholm.
Stockholm
According to Kratzer (2000), the group of verbs that form target state
passives in German coincides with the group that can be modified by
for-PPs, which specify the duration of the target state; cf. the accomplishment verbs (in the sense of Vendler 1967) aufpumpen ‘pump up’
and leeren ‘empty’ in (8:39) and (8:40).
(8:39)
a.
b.
(8:40)
Die Reifen sind immer noch aufgepumpt.
the tires
are still
up.pumped
‘The tires are still inflated.’
Der Briefkasten ist (*immer noch) geleert.
the mail.box
is
still
emptied
‘The mail box has (*still) been emptied.’
(Kratzer 2000:ex. (1), (2))
a.
Wir werden das Boot für ein paar
Stunden aufpumpen.
we will
the boat for a couple hours
up.pump
‘We will inflate the boat for a few hours.’
Implies that the boat will remain inflated for a few hours.
b. * Wir werden den Briefkasten für drei Tage leeren.
we will
the mailbox
for three days empty
Intended: ‘We will empty the mailbox and have it empty for three
days.’
(Kratzer 2000:ex. (10), (11))
To Kratzer, the difference between aufpumpen and leeren provides an
argument against the syntactic decomposition of accomplishments into
an eventive and a stative component. She assumes that if decomposition
of the verbs were involved, the verb leeren but not the verb aufpumpen
would form target state participles, rather than the other way around;
315
leeren is a compositional causative, while the stative part of a particle
verb like aufpumpen would be specified only by the particle auf. With
the analysis of particles that I have assumed here, the latter is, in fact,
precisely what is expected: particles (but not adjectives like leer ‘empty’) identify the res head and specify the target state.
In Swedish, the group of verbs that form target state participles does
not coincide with the verbs that allow for-adverbials that specify the
duration of the target state. While neither verb forms a target state participle, komma hem but not anlända allows for-adverbials; see the contrast between (8:41a) and (8:41b).
(8:41)
a.
Frida kom bara hem
i
fem minuter idag.
Frida came only home for five minutes today
‘Frida only came home for five minutes today.’
b. * Frida anlände i
fem minuter.
Frida arrived for five minutes
The availability of for-adverbials seems to depend on the particle to a
slightly higher extent than the availability of target state participles
does; consider (8:42) and (8:43) on the reading where the adverbial
specifies the duration of the target state.192
(8:42)
a.
(8:43)
a.
192
Hon kom in i
två minuter.
she came in for two minutes
‘She came in for two minutes.’
b. Hon kom ut i några minuter (för att prata med mig).
she came out for some minutes for to talk with me
‘She came out for two minutes (to talk to me).’
c. * Boken
kom ut
i
flera
veckor.
the.book came out for several weeks
Hon reste
hem
i
några dagar.
she travelled home for some days
‘She went home for a couple of days.’
b. Hon reste
hit i
några dagar.
she travelled here for some days
‘She went here for a couple of days.’
c. * Hon avreste
i
några dagar.
she off.travelled for some days
Intended: ‘She went off and stayed away for a couple of days.’
The preposition i ‘in’ of the for-adverbial is not obligatory; some speakers
prefer the examples in (8:42) and (8:43) without it.
316
It is possible that a particle or PP cannot be modified by a for-adverbial
when it does not specify a Place, but simply a point of transition; note
the difference between (8:43a–b) and (8:43c). Similarly, while (8:42b)
states that she is outside for a few minutes, (8:42c) does not say where
the book goes. As noted in connection to (8:41) above, the verb anlända
does not allow for-adverbials; the prefix an- denotes transition. We can
assume that the distinction between different PPs and particles depends
on their internal structure.193 For the present purposes, it suffices that the
properties of resP can vary depending on what lexical item it is linked to
and what complement it takes. In this way, for-adverbials that specify
the duration of the target state are restricted in a similar way as foradverbials that express the duration of the process. Depending partly on
the lexical items involved, the latter can be excluded when proc takes a
resP as its complement. For instance, a verb like anlända involves
procP, but the process cannot be modified by a for-adverbial that specifies the duration of the process; see (8:44) (cf. also the examples in
(6:63) and (6:64) above).
(8:44)
* Flyget
the.flight
anlände i
arrived for
tre minuter.
three minutes
As noted, the group of verbs that allows for-adverbials that specify the
duration of the target state apparently coincides with the verbs that form
target state participles in German; since it is not completely predictable
what verbs belong to this group, Kratzer takes this as an argument
against a syntactically introduced target state. In Swedish, we have seen
that there is a mismatch between the availability of for-adverbials that
specify the duration of the target state and the possibility of target state
participles; the verbs that form target state participles appear to be a
subgroup of the verbs that take for-adverbials. Without going into
specifics, I suggested above that for-adverbials are restricted to certain
kinds of target states (resPs). The possibility of target state participles is
more limited; not only is a resP with certain properties required, the
semantics of the lexical verb must also allow for truncation of the verb
phrase. It is perhaps not unexpected that the possibility of truncation can
coincide with the presence of a resP with the relevant properties, as it
does in German. Moreover, since target state participles in Swedish
presumably lack both initP and procP, we expect Swedish to be more
restrictive with regard to what verbs can form target state participles
193
For a discussion of the structure of prepositions and particles, see e.g. Koopman
(2000), Svenonius (2007) and Tungseth (2008), and references given there.
317
than German, where target state participles can include also procP. This
account is neither purely lexical, nor purely syntactic; a target state is
introduced in the structure by resP, but a lexical item with a res feature
and the appropriate encyclopaedic content is also required for a target
state participle to be available.
The behaviour of verbs like kamma ‘comb’ is harder to reconcile with
the analysis of target state participles proposed here. Without a particle,
kamma does not identify res; among other things, it can have atelic and
unbounded readings as in (8:45).
(8:45)
a.
b.
Nu kammar han håret
i
tio minuter.
now combes he the.hair for ten minutes
‘Now, he is combing his hair for ten minutes.’
När vi
kom hem,
kammade han håret.
when we came home combed
he the.hair
‘When we came home, he was combing his hair.’
(simultaneous or sequential)
Nevertheless, kamma appears to form a target state participle, as do a
number of other verbs that do not have a res feature; see (8:46) which
convey that nothing has been done to undo the event of combing or
making the bed, and that the consequences of the event therefore remains.
(8:46)
a.
b.
c.
d.
Han är fortfarande kammad i håret.
he is still
combed
in the.hair
Sängen är fortfarande bäddad.
the.bed is still
made
Däcken är
fortfarande pumpade.
the.tires are still
pumped
Väggen är fortfarande målad.
the.wall is still
painted
If a res feature could be supplied by the participial morphology, additional assumptions would be required to restrict its use to cases like
those in (8:46); examples like (8:47) are unavailable (even if it is possible to find an appropriate context).
(8:47)
* Blommorna är fortfarande vattnade. (Så vi behöver inte
the.plants are still
watered (so we need
not
vattna dem igen
på flera
dagar.)
water them again for several days)
Intended: ‘The flowers still have water, so we do not need to water
them again for several days.’
318
In fact, the examples in (8:46) appear to be rather exceptional; cf. the
examples in (8:48) below.
(8:48)
a. * Mattan
är
the.carpet is
b. * Gräsmattan
the.lawn
fortfarande skurad.
still
cleaned
är fortfarande klippt.
is still
mown
With none of the verbs in (8:46) above can a for-adverbial specify the
duration of the target state; see (8:49) below (the reading where the adverbial relates to the process is disregarded).
(8:49)
a. * Han
he
b. * Han
he
c. * Han
he
d. * Han
he
pumpade däcken i ett par
timmar.
pumped
the.tires for a
couple of hours
bäddade sängen i
några dagar.
made
the.bed for some days
kammade håret
i
några timmar.
combed
the.hair for some hours
målade väggen i
några timmar.
painted the.wall for some hours
When looking at verbs that are expected to include resP in their structure, I noted that target state participles are possible with a subgroup of
the verbs that allow these for-adverbials, and not the other way around.
One way of getting around the problem would be to say that examples
like those in (8:46) above all involve an implicit adverbial over which
fortfarande takes scope; with kammad ‘combed’ or pumpad ‘pumped’
the adverbial could correspond to ‘well’ or ‘properly’; with målad
‘painted’ it would be a colour. Additional assumptions would be required to account for the fact that degree modifiers are not possible; cf.
(8:50) where a degree modifier is possible in the presence of an adverbial ordentligt ‘properly’, but not otherwise.
(8:50)
a.
b.
Han är fortfarande (*ganska) kammad i håret.
he is still
pretty
combed in the.hair
‘His hair is still (*pretty) combed.’
Han är fortfarande (ganska) ordentligt kammad i håret.
he is still
pretty
carefully combed
in the.hair
‘His hair is still combed (pretty) carefully.’
In any case, participles like kammad do not provide an argument for a
purely lexical or idiosyncratic analysis of target states, nor for an account that assumes that roots lack category features; the problem is that
319
verbs like kamma appear to involve a target state according to some
diagnostics and not according to others.
8.2.3. Summary
In this section, I proposed that target state participles and resultant state
participles in Present-Day Swedish either involve only resP embedded
under VoiceP (target state participles), or a full verb phrase, necessarily
including an initP (resultant state participles). In this respect, Swedish
differs from both German and Greek. In German, no stative passives
have initP in their structure, while in Greek they can, but need not.
Particularly with regard to target state participles, there are several
remaining questions. I have pointed to a group of verbs (e.g. kamma
‘comb’) which appear to form target state participles, although they
presumably lack res feature. Further investigation of the properties of
target states is required, particularly since the different diagnostics point
in partly different directions. Since it seems unlikely that the solution to
these problems have a bearing on our understanding of the issues at
hand, I leave them for future work and maintain the generalization that
Swedish target state participles consist of resP embedded under Voice.
8.3. Progressive states
I have noted that verbs which have target state participles, do not form
progressive state participles, and the other way around. This section is
concerned with the structure of progressive state participles, and the
question what characterizes the verbs that they are formed from.
8.3.1. The structure of progressive state participles
Like target state participles, progressive state participles can be modified
by fortfarande ‘still’; see the examples in (8:51), which have an ongoing
reading (cf. chapter 6 above). Unlike target state participles, progressive
state participles are grammatical with agent-oriented adverbials.
(8:51)
a.
Vagnen
är fortfarande dragen av vita
the.chariot
is still
pulled by white
‘The chariot is still being pulled by white horses.’
hästar.
horses
320
b.
Han är fortfarande jagad av polisen.
he is still
chased by the police
‘He is still being chased by the police.’
Instrument adverbials are also (marginally) available, while manner adverbials like långsamt ‘slowly’ are not:
(8:52)
a.
b.
?
Han är jagad med hund.
he is chased with dog
‘He is being chased with dogs.’
Vagnen
är (*långsamt) dragen av vita hästar.
the.chariot is slowly
pulled by white horses
‘The chariot is being (*slowly) pulled by white horses.’
The availability of agent-oriented adverbials and instruments suggest the
presence of initP in the structure. I therefore take Swedish progressive
state participles to have the structure in (8:53) below.
(8:53)
Progressive state participles:
[VoiceP Voice [initP init [procP proc]]]
Hence, progressive state participles include initP like resultant state
participles, but like target state participles they lack AspP.
8.3.2. Restrictions
Verbs like använda ‘use’ form both progressive state participles and resultant state participles, and verbs like fylla ‘fill’ have both target state
participles and resultant state participles; see (8:54) and (8:55). Whether
one reading is preferred to the other, depends on the participial verbs as
well as on context.
(8:54)
a.
b.
Just nu är gungan
använd av Lisa. (Du får vänta
just now is the.swing used
by Lisa you may wait
på din tur.)
for your turn
‘Right now, the swing is being used by Lisa. (You must wait for your
turn.’
Tröjan
är redan använd.
the.sweater is already used
‘The sweater has already been used.’
321
(8:55)
a.
b.
Tunnan
är fortfarande fylld med vatten.
the.barrel is still
filled with water
‘The barrel is still filled with water.’
Tunnan
är redan fylld av Lisa.
the.barrel is already filled by Lisa
‘This barrel has already been filled by Lisa.’
As noted, change of location verbs like anlända ‘arrive’ do not have
target state participles, presumably since their meaning does not allow
truncation of the verb phrase. There is also another group of verbs which
neither form progressive state participles nor target state participles,
namely eventive verbs with Rheme or Path objects (disregarding exceptions like kamma ‘comb’). I noted above that predicates like läsa en bok
‘read a book’ or springa en kilometer ‘run a kilometre’ are ungrammatical in target state passives; see the examples in (8:31) and (8:33)
above. Also progressive state participles are unavailable with these
verbs; consider the examples in (8:56), which are ungrammatical (independently of context).
(8:56)
a. * Kakorna är
fortfarande bakade. (Vi måste vänta tills
the.cakes are still
baked we must
wait
until
de är
färdiga.)
they are ready)
Intended: ‘The cakes are still being baked. (We must wait until they
are ready.)’
b. * Kilometern är fortfarande sprungen. (Det tar tid.)
the.kilometre is still
run
it
takes time
Intended: ‘The kilometre is still being run. (It takes time.)
As noted, telic predicates like läsa boken ‘read the book’ can otherwise
have an ongoing reading; consider the contrast between (8:57a) and
(8:57b).
(8:57)
a.
Han läser
boken
i
tio minuter.
he reads the.book for ten minutes
‘He is reading the book for ten minutes.’
b. * Boken
är läst i
tio minuter.
the.book is read for ten minutes
Intended: ‘The book has been being read for ten minutes.’
The ungrammaticality of the examples in (8:56) is, in fact, not due
directly to telicity; progressive state participles are equally impossible
when the promoted DP is not quantized:
322
(8:58)
a. * Kaka är fortfarande bakad. (Vi måste vänta tills det är färdigt.)
cake is still
baked we must wait until it
is ready)
Intended: ‘Cake is still being baked. (We must wait until it is ready.)’
b. * Serietidningar är
fortfarande lästa.
comic.books
are still
read
Intended: ‘Comic books are still being read.’ (ongoing)
The difference between verbs like baka ‘bake’ and använda ‘use’ with
regard to progressive state participles cannot be due directly to category
features; both baka and använda have init and proc features. I propose
that the possible readings of the passives instead are a direct consequence of the origin of the DP promoted to subject. The verbs that
form progressive state participles all have object DPs that are Undergoers; they are therefore atelic independently of whether the object is
quantized or not (cf. chapter 6 above).194 Target state participles are
formed from some of the verbs that have a resP in their structure, and
the promoted subject is Resultee. In other words, target state and progressive state passives express that a state holds of the clause subject in
its capacity of Undergoer or Resultee.
As far as I can see, there are no verbs that form both target state and
progressive state participles. Participles of verbs like jaga ‘chase’ do not
have a progressive state reading when resP (a particle) is added; see
(8:59).
(8:59)
a.
b.
Vagnen
är (*fortfarande) ivägdragen.
the.chariot is still
away.pulled
‘The chariot has (*still) been pulled away.’
Han är (*fortfarande) uppjagad i trädet.
he is still
up.chased in the.tree
‘He has (*still) been chased up into the tree.’
194
The ditransitive verb erbjuda ‘offer’ is a possible exception, since it forms a
progressive state participle, independently of which object is promoted to clause
subject.
(i) Hon är fortfarande erbjuden
she is still
offered
‘She is still offered a job.’
ett
a
jobb.
job
(ii) Jobbet
är fortfarande erbjudet henne.
the.job is still
offered her
‘The job is still offered to her.’
To maintain that the subject of progressive state passives is always Undergoer, we
have to assume that the verb phrases in the examples in (i) and (ii) have different
structures.
323
This restriction is expected since the presence of resP makes a bounded
or resultative reading obligatory in Swedish (see chapter 6, section 6.2.2
above). Unlike both resultant state participles and target state participles,
progressive state participles therefore necessarily lack resP.
Also PPs that express a telos make the progressive state reading impossible or hard to get, although the preposition does not necessarily
associate with res. The example in (8:60) is, however, not completely
ungrammatical, although a BECOME-passive or a morphological passive is highly preferred.
(8:60)
??
Han är fortfarande jagad från Kina.
he is still
chased from China
‘He is still being chased from China.’
In chapter 6 above (fn. 152), I noted that telic PPs more generally tend
to make an unbounded reading difficult to get; cf. (8:61), which is also
slightly degraded.
(8:61)
?
De jagar
honom fortfarande från Kina.
they chase him
still
from China
‘They are still chasing him from China.’ (ongoing)
8.3.3. Summary
In chapter 6, I noted that verbs that form progressive state participles do
not form target state participles, and the other way around. This is
accounted for with the structures assumed here: progressive state participles necessarily lack resP, whereas target state participles necessarily
involve resP. If target state participles and progressive state participles
involved an AspP with unbounded or resultative aspect, we would have
to explain why verbs that are otherwise not incompatible with unbounded aspect do not have progressive state participles. We have, for example, seen that verbs like äta ‘eat’ and läsa ‘read’ can have unbounded
readings also in a telic context, but they do not form progressive state
participles.
I have suggested that the interpretation of participles that lack AspP
depends on the origin of the DP that is promoted to subject: an Undergoer yields a progressive state participle and a Resultee a target state
participle. In chapter 9 below, we will see that also the interpretation of
the perfect-like construction with HAVE may depend on the structure of
the complement.
324
While target state and progressive state participles both lack AspP,
only the latter involve initP, like resultant state participles do. Hence, in
Swedish, the participial stativizer always attaches to a state, either the
initial state or the target state.
8.4. The participial stativizer
In the previous sections, I have sketched a structural account of three
kinds of stative past participles in Swedish. I have referred to a participial stativizer which can attach in different positions (depending on
language and participle), and which allows the participial verb to have
unlinked category features. In this section, I further consider the origin
of the stativity.
8.4.1. Stative and eventive participles
In traditional Swedish grammars, the implicit assumption tends to be
that the difference between stative passives with BE and eventive passives with BECOME lies exclusively in the auxiliary; a distinction between stative and eventive participles is usually not made. There is,
however, reason to distinguish stative from eventive participles, regardless of auxiliary.
We know that BE and BECOME have different selectional restrictions in Swedish: BECOME but not BE requires a passive past participle. Moreover, there are, as far as I know, no eventive counterparts to
target state participles (with or without procP); participles with truncated verb phrase structure appear always to be stative, and the possibility of truncation therefore seems to be due to the presence of a
stativizer.
In Icelandic, active past participles in the complement of BE are
necessarily stative, whereas passives are not; cf. again (8:62) below.
Without a distinction between stative and eventive participles, we would
have to assume that Icelandic has two different but homonymous passive auxiliaries, one which is eventive (and licenses manner adverbials)
and one which is stative (and does not); only the latter allows participles
of unaccusative verbs.
(8:62)
a.
Brauðið
var fryst
hratt.
the.bread was frozen quickly
‘The bread was frozen quickly.’
325
b.
Brauðið
var frosið (*hratt).
the.bread was frozen quickly
‘The bread has frozen (*quickly).’
In Swedish, manner adverbials are, as noted, possible in passives with
BECOME, but not with BE; see again (8:63) below.
(8:63)
a.
b.
Tunnan
var (*långsamt) fylld med vatten.
the.barrel
was slowly
filled with water
‘The barrel had been (*slowly) filled with water.’
Tunnan
blev
långsamt fylld
med vatten.
the.barrel became slowly
filled with water
‘The barrel was slowly filled with water.’
Manner adverbials are, however, possible also in constructions with
BECOME + adjective, but not with BE; see (8:64). One could therefore
assume that the structure associated with BECOME licenses the manner
adverbial also in the passive, and that the participle is the same in both
(8:63a) and (8:63b). This would basically mean that all Swedish participles are stative (and not that they are all eventive).
(8:64)
a.
b.
Hon är (*snabbt) glad.
she is quickly
happy
‘She (*quickly) is happy.’
Hon blir
snabbt glad.
she becomes quickly happy
‘She quickly becomes happy.’
However, unlike adjectives like glad ‘happy’, participles in the complement of BE may involve a full verb phrase and an aspectual head with
bounded or resultative aspect. If the participle is the same in both stative
and eventive passives, we would have to assume that the auxiliary BE in
some way blocks the possibility of manner adverbials without blocking
agent-oriented adverbials, instruments and adverbials of frequency and
iteration at the same time. On the other hand, if the participle in the
complement of BE is stative, manner adverbials are expected to be unavailable, as with stative verbs like those in (8:65).
(8:65)
a.
b.
Hon bor (*snabbt) i Göteborg.
she lives quickly
in Gothenburg
‘She (*quickly) lives in Gothenburg.’
Han gillar (*långsamt) morötter.
he likes
slowly
carrots
’He (*slowly) likes carrots.’
326
Moreover, past participles can be modified by manner adverbials also in
the absence of an eventive auxiliary; see the reduced relatives with participles in (8:66).
(8:66)
a.
b.
en man långsamt slagen i schack
a
man slowly
beaten in chess
‘a man who was slowly beaten in chess’
ett brev långsamt och eftertänksamt skrivet för hand
a
letter slowly
and thoughtfully written by hand
‘a letter which was slowly and thoughtfully written by hand’
In other words, reduced relatives like those in (8:66) seem to involve
eventive participles (see Rapp 2001 for a similar conclusion for German). Therefore, I conclude that participles can be either eventive or
stative. In Swedish, BE takes stative complements, whereas BECOME
selects for eventive and passive past participles. Only stative participles
can presumably involve truncated verb phrases.
We have seen that unaccusative verbs like kallna ‘cool’ do not have
stative participles in the complement of BE in Present-Day Swedish.
Some of them do, however, have participles in attributive position and
in postnominal reduced relatives; cf. (8:67).
(8:67)
a.
b.
det kallnade kaffet
the cooled
the.coffee
‘the cooled coffee’
den smälta snön
the melted the.snow
‘the melted snow’
We could assume that BE selects stative participles that include initP,
but that stative participles without initP occur in other contexts. An
alternative is that unaccusative verbs like kallna ‘cool’ do not form
stative participles, and that the participles in reduced relatives are
eventive. Manner adverbials are not excluded; see (8:68).
(8:68)
a.
b.
en kopp kaffe snabbt kallnad i kylan
a
cup coffee quickly cooled in the.cold
‘a cup of coffee that quickly turned cold in the cold’
en man raskt
hitcyklad
med min post
a
man quickly here.cycled with my .mail
‘a man that quickly cycled here with my mail’
327
As far as I can see, a temporal adverbial cannot give a time to which the
event is anterior in reduced relatives with participles of verbs like kallna; see (8:69).195
(8:69)
a.
b.
en kopp kaffe
kallnad klockan
två
a
cup coffee cooled the.clock two
‘a cup of coffee that turned cold at two o’clock’
E(turning cold) = two o’clock
några löv,
gulnade
redan i september
some leaves yellowed already in September
‘some leaves that turned yellow already in September’
E(turning yellow) in September
This suggests an eventive structure; in stative passives the adverbial is
generally ambiguous; cf. (8:70a) and (8:70b).196
(8:70)
a.
b.
Hon var hitflyttad
klockan
två.
she was here.moved the.clock two
‘She was moved here at two o’clock’
i. E(moving here) = two o’clock
ii. E(moving here) < two o’clock
Hon blev
hitflyttad
klockan två.
she became here.moved the.clock two
‘She was moved here at two o’clock’
E(moving here) = two o’clock
An account of reduced relatives lies beyond the scope of the present
study. In the present context, it suffices that participles apparently can
have either eventive or stative properties independently of an (explicit)
auxiliary, and that there, as far as I can see, is little evidence for stative
participles of unaccusative verbs like kallna in Present-Day Swedish.
195
As noted in chapter 3, the adverbial does actually not specify the event time
directly; positional adverbials generally relate to the assertion time.
196 This does not mean to say that all participles are always eventive in reduced
relatives; cf. e.g. the target state participles in (i).
(i) lampan, fortfarande släckt
klockan
tio på
the.lamp still
turned.off the.clock ten at
‘the lamp that was still off at ten o’clock at night’
kvällen
night
328
8.4.2. The stativizer
As noted in section 8.2.1 above, Alexiadou & Anagnostopoulou (2008)
suggest that all three kinds of stative participles involve an aspectual
phrase that stativizes the verb phrase (cf. also Anagnostopoulou 2003a,
Embick 2004a). They also propose that the resultant state operator differs from the target state operator (although they can have the same morphology). I have instead assumed that the difference between target
states and progressive states, on the one hand, and resultant states, on
the other, is a consequence of the presence/absence of Asp; the progressive state and target state readings have been taken to depend directly on
the composition of the verb phrase (in combination with a stativizer).
The question, then, is what the position of the stativizer is. If it could
attach to Asp, we would have to explain why manner adverbials are excluded, and why the verb phrase must necessarily include an initP;
unaccusatives like kallna ‘cool’ and bli ‘become’ are otherwise not incompatible with bounded aspect (some of them even require bounded
aspect).
Instead, I propose that stativity/eventivity depends on the properties
of Voice. Unlike Alexiadou and Anagnostopoulou (2008), I have assumed that an Initiator or Agent is not introduced in VoiceP but in initP,
below Voice. VoiceP instead binds the event variable and introduces the
event time. Since manner adverbials like långsamt ‘slowly’ say something about the duration of the event time (unlike e.g. instruments), they
are also expected to relate to Voice, and to require eventive Voice.
Therefore, they are excluded also in stative passives that involve AspP
and a full verb phrase.
There is one complication in this account. If the position of the stativizer is below Asp, a stative VoiceP combines with bounded or resultative aspect in resultant state participles. Since stative verbs are
generally not compatible with bounded aspect, we might expect also
resultant state participles to be unavailable; cf. the stative verb in (8:71a)
and the resultant state participle in (8:71b) (cf. also Borer 2005b:129
and references cited there).
(8:71)
a.
b.
Väggarna var röda (*två gånger idag).
the.walls were red two times today
‘The walls were red (*twice today).
Väggarna är
målade två gånger idag.
the.walls are painted two times today
‘The walls have been painted twice today.’
329
Given the verb phrase assumed here, state and process are taken to be
primitives (and not defined in terms of time). Both initP and resP
introduce states, and stative verbs like love or fear are characterized by
lacking procP. This should not in itself make a stative verb incompatible
with temporal boundaries.197 As we have seen, some stative verbs are
grammatical with an in-adverbial, but then with an inchoative reading;
cf. (8:72a). Note that the in-adverbial provides a temporal boundary, but
this does not mean that the predicate behaves like an event in other
respects; manner adverbials and wh-clefts are still ungrammatical, as in
(8:72b–c).
(8:72)
a.
Jag gillade tavlan
på ett par
minuter.
I
liked
the.painting in
a
couple minutes
‘I started liking the painting in a couple of minutes.’
b. Jag gillade konst (*långsamt) på ett par
dagar.
I
liked
art
slowly
in
a
couple days
‘I (*slowly) started liking art in a couple of days.’
c. ?* Vad som hände
var att jag gillade tavlan
what that happened was that I
liked
the.painting
på ett par
minuter.
in
a
couple minutes
Resultant state participles behave like stative verbs like gilla in the latter
respects, but do not get an inchoative reading with in-adverbials; cf.
(8:73).198
(8:73)
a.
b.
Blommorna var vattnade på ett par
minuter.
the.flowers
were watered
in
a couple minutes
‘The flowers had been watered within a couple of minutes.’
Blommorna var (*långsamt) vattnade på ett par
dagar.
the.flowers were slowly
watered
in a couple days
‘The flowers had (*slowly) been watered within a couple of days.’
197
If individual-level predicates are inherently generic or must combine with a
generic operator, as suggested by Chierchia (1995), they necessarily lack specified
(or specific) temporal boundaries; they are therefore ungrammatical with bounded
aspect and with in-adverbials also on an inchoative reading:
(i)
Hon var lång (*på två minuter).
she was tall in two minutes
198 One way of getting around this would be to say that resultant state participles
are in fact inchoative with in-adverbials, in the sense that they express the beginning
of a resultant state. This would, however, require us to posit a specific ‘resultant
state’, and still leave us with the problem why stative predicates have an inchoative
reading with in-adverbials.
330
c. * Vad som hände
var att blommorna
what that happened was that the.flowers
var vattnade.
was watered
We can note that (participial) middles, which can be taken to express
generic states, behave like other statives in certain respects, but require
manner adverbials (which are incorporated into them); consider (8:74).
Hence, we seem to be dealing with several different kinds of statives.
Apparently, also Voice can express a state or an event, and the complex
eventuality can therefore have (some of) the properties characteristic of
states independently of the presence/absence of procP.
(8:74)
a.
Blommorna är snabbvattnade (*på ett par minuter/*klockan tre).
the.flowers are quick.watered in a couple minutes/the.clock three
‘The flowers water quickly (*in a couple of minutes/*at three
o’clock).’
b. * Vad som hände
var att blommorna var snabbvattnade.
what that happened was that the.flowers were quick.watered
The interpretation of stative verbs like gilla with in-adverbials depends
on precisely how the verb phrase is related to temporal structure. I have
largely limited the discussion of aspect to a simple distinction between
bounded and unbounded aspect, disregarding the internal complexity of
eventualities. If bounded aspect relates to (the time of) the process
subevent (procP), rather than to the entire complex event, it is expected
to be incompatible with verbs that lack procP, but not necessarily with
resultant state participles. I leave these questions aside and continue to
assume that resultant state participles involve a bounded or resultative
Asp, which attaches to a stative VoiceP which embeds a full verb
phrase.
On the present account, perfect participles are not stative (unless they
are formed from a stative verb). As noted in chapter 5 (section 5.1)
above, stative past participles and perfect participles differ e.g. with
respect to the possibility of manner adverbials and wh-clefts. These differences are accounted for by the assumption that the former but not the
latter involve a stativizer. The fact that perfects still share some properties with statives is presumably due to the stativity of the temporal
auxiliary.
331
8.4.3. A micro-parameter
In section 8.2 above, we saw that the size of target state and resultant
state participles varies between languages. I have suggested that this
variation lies in the properties of the participial stativizer, but that it is
reflected in the verbs that form stative participles and the adverbial
modification possible. In Present-Day Swedish, the stativizer attaches
either to initP or to resP, whereas in older Swedish it could attach also to
procP. In other words, the change in older Swedish investigated in
chapter 7 above, where the construction with BE was restricted to participles with initP, did not necessarily involve a change in the properties
of BE (or of the unaccusative verbs), but can be understood as a change
in the properties of the participial stativizer.
8.5. Conclusion and open questions
In this chapter, I have argued that stative past participles, unlike eventive past participles, involve a stativizer (in VoiceP) which can be
merged at different levels in the derivation, depending on language and
participle. In Present-Day Swedish, the stativizer attaches either to initP
or resP, and never to procP; change of state verbs like kallna ‘cool’,
which lack both init and res features, therefore do not have stative participles. The possibility of target state and progressive state participles is
partly predictable from the features of the verb. Target state participles
require a verb that allows the init and proc features to remain unassociated to structure; this presumably depends on what kind of target state
the verb specifies, and more generally on the encyclopaedic content of
the verb.
Participles differ with respect to the presence/absence of T and Asp,
as well as in the composition of the verb phrase. In the presence of Asp,
stative past participles have a resultant state reading and a temporalaspectual interpretation which is more independent of the matrix tenseaspect; as noted in chapter 6, positional past time adverbials are in fact
possible with resultant state participles independently of the matrix
tense. Many questions relating to stativity and to the relation between
the complex event structure, the event time and the assertion time, have
been left aside. I return to the consequences of the presence of T in
perfect participles in chapter 10, and, in chapter 11, to the question of
what the different participles have in common.
332
Throughout the discussion of past participles, I have treated passive
and active participles together. With regard to resultant state and target
state participles, passive past participles of transitive verbs and active
participles of unaccusative verbs also seem to pattern together, and it is
predictable from the structure of the participial predicate whether the
reading is passive or active. In other words, the impossibility of certain
participles in Swedish depends on the fact that the participial stativizer
does not attach to procP, and not on a difference between passive and
active participles. In chapter 6, I noted in passing that the extended use
of resultant state participles with BE in older Swedish seems to have
involved both passive and active participles.
There are, however, differences between active and passive past
participles which have not been accounted for. Specifically, active
participles in the complement of BE must have resP in their structure in
Present-Day Swedish, whereas passive past participles need not.199 As
noted, variable behaviour verbs like springa ‘run’ are ungrammatical in
the complement of BE with a Goal PP, but not with a particle. Consider
the contrast between the grammatical passive in (8:75a) and the similar,
but ungrammatical, active example in (8:75b). Compare also the
examples with the verb flytta in (8:76); without a particle, only a passive
reading is available, but with a particle also an active reading is
possible.
(8:75)
a.
Han är jagad ut
ur huset.
he is chased out of the.house
‘He has been chased out of the house.’
b. * Han är sprungen ut
ur huset.
he is run
out of the.house
(8:76)
a.
b.
199
Han är
flyttad från Stockholm.
he is
moved from Stockholm
‘He has been moved from Stockholm.’
Not ‘He has moved from Stockholm.’
Han är hitflyttad
från Stockholm.
he is here.moved from Stockholm
i. ‘He has been moved here from Stockholm.’
ii. ‘He has moved here from Stockholm.’
Since unaccusative verbs generally involve either resP or a PP that provides a
telos, we do not expect any active progressive state participles; we have seen that
Goal PPs and the presence of resP make the progressive state reading unavailable or
hard to get also with passive past participles.
333
Active participles of variable behaviour verbs were possible in the complement of BE with (certain) PPs in older Swedish, and still are in Icelandic and Norwegian, and they can be assumed to have an unaccusative
structure.
It is possible that the different restrictions on passive and active participles depend on competition with the perfect; the perfect with HAVE is
preferred to the active construction with BE also for verbs with a res
feature, and even resultant state participles of atelic verbs are often
marginal. However, we know that there are other contexts where active
and passive participles do not pattern together. Eventive participles in
the complement of BECOME are, for instance, necessarily passive, as
are eventive passives with BE in Icelandic and English. If we assume
that the difference between active and passive voice is nothing else than
the presence/absence of an implicit or demoted external argument, the
difference between active and passive participles should, of course, be
tied to the properties of implicit or demoted arguments. We therefore do
not expect any difference with regard to target state participles, since
they lack the structure that introduces the external argument altogether;
considering the verb phrase, target state participles of unaccusative
verbs and target state participles of transitive verbs look precisely the
same. In fact, English target state participles can be grammatical in the
complement of BE, whether formed from transitive or unaccusative
verbs; see (8:77). Unlike eventive passives, target state participles need
not have event implications, and they do not involve an implicit argument which necessarily has disjoint reference from the matrix subject.
(8:77)
a.
b.
c.
d.
The tires are still inflated.
They are still lost at sea.
It is still broken.
She is still gone.
I leave the question of passivization and the properties of implicit
arguments aside, and turn to the perfect-like constructions with HAVE
and the syntax of HAVE and BE.
334
9. HAVE and BE
In the previous chapters, the focus has been on passive and active participial constructions with BE. I have argued that the construction with
BE + participle of an unaccusative verb never developed all the properties of a perfect in Swedish, and I have suggested that participles in the
complement of BE are tenseless, but that they have structures of varying
size. In this chapter, I show that the finer distinctions among the past
participles are relevant to a discussion of the perfect-like construction
with possessive HAVE + participle which is the origin of the perfect.
Throughout the chapter, I focus on the general properties of the constructions with HAVE and on present-day examples.
In chapter 3, I tied some of the properties of perfects to the syntaxsemantics of HAVE. In this chapter, I look closer at the difference between possessive (‘lexical’) and temporal (‘auxiliary’) HAVE. Since
many languages have perfects with either HAVE or BE, and since
Swedish has perfect-like constructions with both HAVE and BE, the relationship between HAVE and BE also needs to be addressed. In the
next chapter, the findings from this and the preceding chapters are
brought together in an attempt at a more coherent discussion of the historical development.
The chapter is organized as follows. In section 9.1, I give an overview
of the properties of the construction with possessive HAVE + participle
in Swedish. Section 9.2 concerns the interpretation of the construction
and the structure of possessive HAVE. In section 9.3, I address the differences between possessive and temporal HAVE and the structure of
temporal HAVE. In section 9.4, I return to the difference between languages like German and languages like Swedish with regard to the
semantics of the perfect and the possibility of positional past time adverbials. Section 9.4 concerns split auxiliary systems. The chapter ends
with a brief excursus on the possibility of omitting finite temporal
HAVE in subordinate clauses in Modern Swedish.
335
9.1. An overview of possessive HAVE + past participle
There are two important differences between HAVE and BE in perfectlike constructions. Most obviously, the construction with HAVE is obligatorily transitive, whereas the construction with BE is not; cf. (9:1)
and (9:2).200
(9:1)
a.
Vi har *(väskorna) packade.
we have the.bags
packed
‘We have *(the bags) packed.’
b. * Väskorna har packade.
the.bags have packed
(9:2)
a. * Vi är
we are
b. Väskorna
the.bags
väskorna packade.
the.bags packed
är
packade.
are packed
Secondly, the perfect-like construction with present tense HAVE does
not allow positional past time adverbials, whereas the corresponding
construction with BE sometimes does:
(9:3)
a. * Vi har väskorna packade igår.
we have the.bags packed yesterday
b. Väskorna är
packade igår.
the.bags are packed yesterday
‘The bags were packed yesterday.’
In this section, I give an overview of the properties of the perfect-like
construction with HAVE. As we will see, the similarity between perfectlike constructions with HAVE and perfect-like constructions with BE is
clear, despite the differences illustrated above. In section 9.2 below, I
therefore assume that the constructions with BE and HAVE involve the
same element, the copula. Possessive HAVE in addition has a possessive preposition in its structure (cf. chapter 3 above); this accounts for
the difference in argument structure (transitivity), as well as for the difference in interpretation.
In the present context, the restrictions on the construction with HAVE
are particularly relevant since they can shed light on the extended use of
HAVE when the perfect develops. I am therefore mostly concerned with
200
As pointed out in chapter 4, past participles in the complement of possessive
HAVE always agree with the object DP in Swedish, just like participles in the
complement of BE agree with the subject. I only gloss agreement when relevant.
336
the question what constructions with HAVE are accepted by the more
liberal speakers (including myself).
9.1.1. Stative and eventive participles
In English, possessive HAVE can take either a stative or an eventive
participle as complement, just like BE (see e.g. Harley 1998). HAVE is
grammatical in wh-clefts and in the progressive; see (9:4).
(9:4)
a.
b.
What Reynard did was have Pinnochio beaten to a pulp by his
henchmen.
Reynard is having Pinnochio robbed by his confederates.
(Harley 1998:(28))
In Swedish, possessive HAVE necessarily takes a stative participial
complement, again just like BE. Perfect-like constructions with HAVE
can therefore not be embedded under hålla på att ‘keep at, be doing’;
see (9:5).
(9:5)
* Hon höll på att ha fönstren
tvättade.
she kept at to
have the.windows cleaned
Intended: ‘She was having her windows cleaned.’
The eventive correspondence to the construction with HAVE is passives
with GET. GET-passives are grammatical with hålla på att; see (9:6).201
(9:6)
Hon höll på att få
fönstren
tvättade.
she kept at
to
get the.windows cleaned
‘She was getting the windows cleaned.’
GET but not HAVE can occur in wh-clefts like those in (9:7).
(9:7)
201
a. * Vad som hände
var att hon hade väskorna
what that happened was that she had the.bags
b. Vad som hände
var att hon fick väskorna
what that happened was that she got the.bags
‘What happened was that she got the bags packed.’
packade.
packed
packade.
packed
As pointed out by Egerland (1996), the lexical restrictions on the perfect-like
construction with HAVE and passives with GET are very similar (cf. also McIntyre
2005 for English and German). In Swedish, a construction with GET (or a perfect
with HAVE) is often preferred to a construction with possessive HAVE also when
both are possible.
337
Manner adverbials like snabbt ‘quickly’ are impossible with possessive
HAVE in Swedish; see (9:8). The corresponding GET-passives are
grammatical; see (9:9).
(9:8)
a.
b.
(9:9)
a.
b.
Hon har håret
kammat
(*med snabba rörelser).
she has the.hair combed
with
quick movements
‘She has her hair combed (*with quick movements).’
Vi har (*långsamt) brevet
skrivet.
we have slowly
the.letter written
‘We (*slowly) have the letter written.’
Hon får håret
kammat (med snabba rörelser).
she gets the.hair combed with quick movements
‘She gets her hair combed (with quick movements).’
Vi får (långsamt) brevet
skrivet.
we get slowly
the.letter written
‘We (slowly) get the letter written.’
Resultative manner adverbials and instruments, on the other hand, are
grammatical with HAVE and BE alike; see (9:10) (and cf. chapter 5,
section 5.5.3.3 above).
(9:10)
a.
b.
Vi har väskorna ordentligt packade.
we have the.bags carefully packed
‘We have the bags carefully packed.’
Jag har golven
tvättade med såpa.
I
have the.floors cleaned with soft.soap
‘I have the floors cleaned with soft soap.’
As noted in chapter 4, the subject of HAVE can, but need not, be coreferent with the implicit argument of the participle. Agentive by-phrases
are possible; see (9:11).
(9:11)
Jag vill ha brevet
renskrivet
av sekreteraren.
I
want have the.letter clean.written by the.secretary
‘I want to have a fair copy of the letter made by the secretary’
We can therefore assume that the perfect-like construction with HAVE
involves a stative and passive past participle with an implicit argument
which has free interpretation.
338
9.1.2. Target states, progressive states and resultant states
As in BE-passives, the participle can express a target state, a progressive
state or a resultant state; cf. the target state passives in (9:12), the progressive state passives in (9:13), and the resultant state passives in
(9:14). The examples with progressive state participles are, however, not
acceptable to all speakers.
(9:12)
a.
b.
(9:13)
a.
b.
(9:14)
a.
b.
Vi har fortfarande väskorna packade.
we have still
the.bags packed
‘We still have the bags packed.’
Vi har fortfarande lådan fylld med vatten.
we have still
the.box filled with water
‘We still have the box filled with water.’
Vi har dem fortfarande observerade.
we have them still
observed
‘We still have them observed.’
Polisen
har dem fortfarande jagade genom hela
the.police has them still
chased through whole
‘The police still has them chased through all of Europe.’
Europa.
Europe
Vi har (*fortfarande) brevet
skrivet.
we have still
the.letter written
‘We (*still) have the letter written.’
Vi har (*fortfarande) blommorna vattnade.
we have still
the.flowers watered
‘We (*still) have the flowers watered.’
The construction with HAVE + passive participle is infrequent in
(written) Present-Day Swedish.202 In the written language corpora, most
examples involve target state participles as in (9:15).
(9:15)
a.
b.
202
Hon har kappkragen
uppslagen.
she has the.coat.collar up.turned
‘She has the coat collar turned up.’
(PAROLE)
Alltså när man har kanalen
påslagen och
that.is when one has the.channel on.turned and
pysslar
med annat.
potter.around with other
In Rawoens’s (2008) investigation of causative constructions in Modern Swedish Corpora of close to 40 million words, the examples of HAVE with a causative
reading (with a participial or infinitival complement) amount to no more than three.
339
‘That is, when one has the channel on and potter around with other
things.’
(PAROLE)
Many examples with resultant state participles are awkward, partly because a different expression (a perfect) is highly preferred, and because
a relevant context can be difficult to imagine. Resultant state participles
like those in (9:16) require a similar context as the corresponding construction with BE; i.e. they express that a job is done or that something
has been achieved.203 On the primary reading, the implicit argument of
the participle and the clause subject are therefore generally coreferent.
(9:16)
a.
b.
c.
Jag har barnet
rapat.
I
have the.baby burped
‘I am done burping the baby.’
Nu har jag äntligen den där milen sprungen.
now have I
finally that there the.mile run
‘Now I am finally done running that mile.’
Jag har boken
läst och sammanfattad.
I
have the.book read and summarized
‘I am done reading and summarizing the book.’
There are typical (frequent) examples of HAVE + resultant state participles that most speakers seem to find less marked. As expected, these
examples tend to involve predicates that express that something has
been achieved; see (9:17).
(9:17)
a.
b.
Det känns bra att ha det gjort.
it
feels
good to
have it
done
‘It feels good to have it done.’
Nu har jag fönstren
tvättade och tvätten
struken.
now have I
the.windows cleaned and the.laundry ironed
‘Now, I am done cleaning the windows and ironing the laundry.’
Also other examples, which might seem odd or degraded when taken in
isolation, improve when a context is added; the example in (9:18) is, for
instance, completely natural.204
203
Here, my judgements differ from those given by Egerland (1996). Egerland
argues that there is an affectedness constraint on the perfect-like construction with
HAVE and that examples like those in (9:16c) are ungrammatical. In my view, they
are marked and contextually restricted, just like many other resultant state participles, but they are not ungrammatical.
204 In many cases, perfect-like constructions with HAVE are better when HAVE is
non-finite. It is possible that this relates to the restrictions on temporal-aspectual
340
(9:18)
När hon kommer tänker jag ha chokladen
smält
when she arrives
intend I
have the.chocolate melted
så att det bara är att röra ihop
smeten.
so that it
just is to
mix together the.batter
‘When she arrives, I intend to have the chocolate melted so that it is
just to mix together the batter.’
Although the construction with HAVE is more marked, the systematic
lexical restrictions on the perfect-like construction with HAVE are very
similar to those of passives with BE.205 As we have already seen, there
is one important difference: past participles of unaccusative verbs are
ungrammatical with HAVE but not (necessarily) with BE. I return to
this in section 9.4.2 below.
9.1.3 On the position of the object
In the perfect-like construction with HAVE, as in e.g. participial absolutes, the lower DP (the object) moves across the participle to a
position between the participle and the finite verb. In this respect, these
past participial constructions differ from perfects, many infinitives, and
finite clauses, where a full DP object always follows the verb in Swedish (disregarding objects in sentence initial position); cf. (9:19) and
(9:20) below.206
interpretation. Also with DPs that express punctual events, finite but not non-finite
forms of HAVE are degraded; cf. (i). See e.g. Harley 2004 and references cited
there.
(i) a.
Hon borde ha en spark i baken.
she should have a
kick
in the.behind
‘She should get a kick in the pants.’
b. #Hon har en spark i baken.
she has a
kick
in the.behind
205 A few stative verbs are grammatical in passives with BE, but awkward or degraded with HAVE; consider äga ‘own’ in (i).
(i) a.
Huset
är ägt
av staten.
the.house is owned by the.state
‘The house is owned by the state.’
b. *Staten
har företaget
ägt
(av privatpersoner).
the.state has the.company owned by private.persons
206 The order object–participle does not necessarily correlate with agreement morphology in the constructions in (9:19). The order is the same in Bokmål as in Swedish, although the participle does not agree with the object; consider the examples in
(i).
341
(9:19)
a.
b.
c.
(9:20)
Peter har brevet
skrivet.
Peter has the.letter written
‘Peter has the letter written.’
Peter fick brevet
skrivet.
Peter got the.letter written
‘Peter got the letter written.’
Med brevet
skrivet kunde Peter göra vad han ville.
with the.letter written could Peter do what he wanted
‘With the letter written Peter could do what he wanted.’
a. * Peter har brevet
skrivit.
Peter has the.letter write.SUP
b. * Peter beslutade att brevet
Peter decided
to
the.letter
c. * Peter ska brevet
skriva.
Peter will the.letter write.INF
skriva.
write.INF
In GET-passives, the object must move across a manner adverbial in a
position between GET and the participle; see (9:21).207
(9:21)
a.
hon som fick sina väskor snabbt
she who got her bags
quickly
‘she who quickly got her bags packed’
b. * hon som fick snabbt sina väskor
she who got quickly her bags
packade
packed
packade
packed
A pronoun can move across negation in perfect-like constructions with
HAVE, while a full DP cannot; see (9:22). In this respect, objects in the
perfect-like construction with HAVE pattern with other objects; cf.
(9:23).
(i) a.
Hun vil
ha butikken
stengt
allerede klokken syv.
she wants have the.store.C.SG close.PTC.N.SG already the.clock seven
‘She wants to have the store closed already at seven o’clock.’
b.
Med brevet
skrevet
kunne Peter gjøre hva han ville.
with the.letter.N.SG write.PTC.N.SG could Peter do what he wanted
‘With the letter written Peter could do what he wanted.’
207 Disregarding V2-contexts, the preferred position for manner adverbials is above
the main verb; cf. (i).
(i)
han som snabbt fick sina
väskor packade
he
who quickly got POSS.REFL bags
packed
‘he who quickly got his bags packed’
342
(9:22)
a.
Frida har det ännu inte skrivet.
Frida has it
yet not written
‘Frida does not have it written yet.’
b. * Frida har brevet
ännu inte skrivet.
Frida has the.letter yet not written
(9:23)
a.
Frida ser det inte.
Frida sees it
not
‘Frida does not see it.’
b. * Frida ser brevet
inte.
Frida sees the.letter not
The restrictions on movement of the pronoun are the same as in ‘regular’ object shift; the pronoun can only shift when the main verb (HAVE)
has moved to C; object shift is therefore impossible both in subordinate
clauses, as in (9:24a), and in constructions with an auxiliary as in
(9:24b) (cf. e.g. Holmberg 1986).
(9:24)
a. * att
that
b. * Hon
she
hon
she
har
has
det
it
det
it
inte
not
inte
not
har
has
haft
had
skrivet
written
skrivet.
written
As we will see below, the entire participial small clause (and not the
object DP) is the Possessum in the construction with possessive HAVE.
In this respect, the construction with HAVE + past participle resembles
an ECM infinitival, where the infinitival clause, and not only the accusative DP, gets a theta role from the matrix verb. Also with regard to the
position of the object, the constructions with HAVE (or GET) + past
participle behave just like ECM infinitivals; cf. the ECM infinitivals in
(9:25) and (9:26), which have the order object–infinitive, and which
allow pronominal objects to shift, as long as the matrix verb (såg ‘saw’)
moves to C.
(9:25)
(9:26)
Peter såg tåget
komma.
Peter saw the.train come
‘Peter saw the train come.’
a.
Han såg det inte komma.
he saw it
not come
‘He did not see it come.’
b. * Han såg tåget
inte komma.
he saw the train not come
c. * Han har det/tåget inte sett komma.
he has it/the.train not seen come
343
In Swedish, GET can marginally occur in a morphological passive. The
object DP of a GET-passive can in this way be promoted to subject, at
least marginally; cf. (9:27a) and (9:27b). Again, the participial construction behaves like an ECM infinitive; cf. (9:28).208
(9:27)
a.
b.
(9:28)
a.
b.
?
Biljetterna kan numera
fås
till ganska lågt pris.
the.tickets can nowadays get.INF.PASS to
rather low price
‘Nowadays, it is possible to get the tickets at a rather low price.’
Artikeln fås
inte skriven utan
ansträngning.
the.paper get.PRES.PASS not written without effort
‘The paper will not get written without effort.’
Han såg tåget
komma.
he saw the.train come
‘He saw the train come.’
Tåget
sågs
komma.
the.train see.PRET.PASS come
‘The train was seen coming.’
Like Egerland (1996) and others, I assume that the object DP moves
within the participial clause, and (disregarding object shift) not into the
matrix verb phrase. An argument for this is that the object DP and the
participle together can be fronted to sentence initial position (given the
right context); consider (9:29).209
208
Egerland (1996:121f.) uses the restriction on periphrastic passivization as an
argument against an ECM analysis of the perfect-like constructions with HAVE and
GET. However, neither HAVE nor GET occurs in periphrastic passives, independently of complement; cf. (i).
(i) a.
*Biljetterna blev
fådda.
the.tickets became got
b. *Biljetter
blev
havda.
the.tickets became had
209 Either participle or DP can also be fronted separately; see (ia) and (ib) (which
requires contrastive focus).
(i) a.
b.
Kappkragen hade hon alltid uppslagen.
the.coat.collar had she always up.turned
‘She always had the coat collar turned up.’
Uppslagen hade hon aldrig kappkragen. (Ordentligt nedvikt
up.turned had she never the.coat.collar properly down.folded
var
den alltid.)
was it
always
‘Turned up she never had the coat collar. (Properly folded down, it
always was.)’
(cf. Egerland 1996:123)
344
(9:29)
Väskorna packade har jag förstås,
men redo att resa
the.bags packed have I
of.course but ready to go
är
jag inte.
am I
not
‘The bags packed, I have, of course, but ready to go, I’m not.
On the assumption that past participles do not assign structural accusative case (to an explicit DP), we could assume that the DP must move to
a position (outside the verb phrase) where it can get case from the
matrix verb. This is in line with standard assumptions that movement in
passives is triggered by case, and it faces similar problems (see chapter
10 below). In GET-passives with participles of ditransitive verbs, either
object can be fronted; cf. (9:30). An account in terms of case could
capture this by assuming different underlying structures, so that either
one of the objects, but not both, can get case within the participial verb
phrase. Examples like (9:31), where both DPs are fronted, are more
problematic; at least one of the DPs must move for a different reason
than case.210
(9:30)
a.
b.
(9:31)
hon som fick Lisa snabbt fråntagen
uppgiften
she who got Lisa quickly away.taken the.task
‘she who quickly got the task taken from Lisa’
hon som fick uppgiften snabbt fråntagen
Lisa
she who got the.task
quickly away.taken Lisa
‘she who quickly got the task taken from Lisa’
hon som fick Lisa uppgiften snabbt fråntagen
she who got Lisa the.task
quickly from.taken
‘she who quickly got the task taken from Lisa’
The participial constructions that involve movement of a DP across the
participle are all characterized by being tenseless (lacking a TP); I have
argued that this is what distinguishes past participles from perfect participles. The movement of the DP should therefore if possible also be tied
to the absence of T. In chapter 10, I suggest that the absence of T does
not make accusative case unavailable, but that it affects assignment of
nominative case. Movement of the internal argument in past participial
constructions can then hardly be required for reasons of case. Another
possibility is that there are heads in the T-domain (e.g. Asp, Voice) with
features that need to be checked by a nominal element that moves to
their specifier (or at least to a position within reach). An internal argu210
Not all speakers find examples like (9:31) equally acceptable.
345
ment therefore has to move out of the verb phrase whenever the external
argument does not (cf. Egerland 1996 who suggests an analysis along
these lines). Given that an (explicit) external argument of a transitive
verb requires the presence of T, the word order can be tied to the presence/absence of T also in this kind of account. Examples like (9:31)
are, however, still problematic; I refer to Belletti (2004) for a discussion
of topic and focus positions in the lower T-domain and to Andréasson
(2007, 2008) for an investigation of how information structure affects
word order in Present-Day Swedish.211
Since nothing in the following hinges on the exact position of the
object(s), I simply assume that the order object–participle in PresentDay Swedish perfect-like examples with HAVE depends on the absence
of T (in one way or another) and that the object is in some verb phrase
external position in the participial clause.
9.2. Possessive HAVE and Pposs
In this section, I consider the decomposition of possessive HAVE,
taking the interpretation of the construction with HAVE + past participle
as a starting point.
9.2.1. The interpretation of HAVE + past participle
Constructions with HAVE + a DP complement can express several different kinds of relationships between the arguments. Most typically, the
relation is one of temporary (alienable) possession, as in (9:32a), or
inalienable possession, as in (9:32b). The relationship between the arguments can also be of location, as in (9:32c), or of more abstract or unspecific nature, as in examples like (9:32d).
211
Swedish GET-passives pose an additional challenge since the order object–
participle is not obligatory; cf. (i) and (ii).
(i) Frida
fick renskrivet
breven
av sekreteraren.
Frida
got clean.write.PTC.N.SG the.letter.PL by the.secretary
‘Frida got the secretary to make a fair copy of the letters.’
(ii) Frida
fick breven
renskrivna
av sekreteraren.
Frida
got the.letter.PL clean.write.PTC.PL by the.secretary
‘Frida got the secretary to make a fair copy of the letters.’
346
(9:32)
a.
b.
c.
d.
Jag har en bok.
I
have a
book
‘I have a book.’
Jag har tio fingrar.
I
have ten fingers
‘I have ten fingers.’
Jag har en bil bakom mig.
I
have a
car behind me
‘I have a car behind me.’
Vi har haft regn.
we have had rain
‘We have had rain.’
In order to avoid the stipulation of several lexical items HAVE, an account of HAVE needs to be general enough to capture the different uses
and their interpretation; what the different constructions with HAVE
have in common is, if nothing else, the verb HAVE. Also the construction with HAVE + past participle should preferably involve the
same HAVE as the other constructions. The semantics of HAVE must
therefore be fairly abstract (cf. Ritter & Rosen 1997, den Dikken 1997
and many others), and, essentially given by the syntactic context.
A location reading requires a coindexed pronoun in the complement
of HAVE, or an element that is inalienably possessed by the subject; cf.
the examples in (9:33) and the Swedish examples in (9:34). (9:33a) and
(9:34a) require the prepositional phrases, since the subject is inanimate,
and since only an alienable possession reading is possible without the
link between subject and complement; cf. (9:33c) and (9:34c). McIntyre
(2006) refers to this as the link requirement.212
(9:33)
a.
b.
c.
The slide has 8 children *(on it). (only location reading)
Calvin has a bee on his back. (location reading)
Calvin has a bee. (only alienable possession reading is available)
(Harley 1998:(11))
(9:34)
a.
Bilden
har 8 barn
*(i högra hörnet).
the.picture has 8 children in the.right corner
‘The picture has 8 children in its right corner.’
(only location reading)
212
Vergnaud & Zubizarreta (1992) argue that inalienable possession involves a
null Possessor argument which is controlled by the Possessor. In this case, also examples like (9:34a) have an (implicit) pronoun coindexed with the subject of HAVE
(cf. Harley 1997).
347
b.
c.
Peter har ett bi
på ryggen.
Peter has a
bee on the.back
’Peter has a bee on his back.’
(location reading)
Peter har ett bi.
Peter has a
bee
’Peter has a bee.’
(only alienable possession reading is available)
A location reading is available also when HAVE takes a past participial
complement, and with the same link requirement; cf. (9:35a), which has
a location reading, and (9:35b), which only has an (infelicitous) alienable possession or causative reading.
(9:35)
a.
Trädet har en fågelholk
fäst
på
the.tree has a
nesting.box attached to
‘The tree has a nesting box attached to its stem.’
b. # Trädet har en fågelholk
fäst.
the.tree has an nesting.box attached
stammen.
the.stem
The interpretation can also depend on whether the participle has event
implications or not (cf. Harley 1998). With a resultant state participle,
the perfect-like construction can have a causative reading, as in (9:36),
which states that Frida will cause the chocolate to be melted, independently of whether she will melt it herself or somebody else does.
(9:36)
Frida tänker
ha
chokladen
smält när Peter
Frida intends.to have the.chocolate melted when Peter
kommer hem.
comes
home
‘Frida intends to have the chocolate melted when Peter comes home.’
The causative reading is independent of whether the subject is coreferent
with the implicit argument of the participle or not. Hence, in both examples in (9:37), Frida causes or induces the event of writing, but only
in (9:37a) is she the Initiator of the participial event. 213
213
There is also a reading of the perfect-like construction with HAVE which is
sometimes referred to as the experiencer or affectedness reading (see e.g. McIntyre
2006), since it states that the subject is affected by the participial state; cf. (i).
(i)
?
Hon hade sin
bil förstörd
av en
she had POSS.REFL car destroyed by a
‘She had her car destroyed by a mean neighbour.’
elak
mean
granne.
neighbour
348
(9:37)
a.
b.
Frida har äntligen artikeln skriven (och hon klarade det själv).
Frida has finally the.paper written and she managed it self
‘Frida has finally the paper written (and she managed it by herself).’
Frida har artikeln
skriven av en journalist.
Frida has the.paper written by a
journalist
‘Frida has a journalist write the paper.’
With target state participles, which I have argued do not have procP in
their structure, the construction with HAVE is silent about the cause of
the participial state; examples like those in (9:38) do not entail that the
subject caused the participial target state.
(9:38)
a.
b.
Jag har fortfarande några flaskor undanstoppade.
I
have still
some bottles away.put
‘I still have some bottles put away.’
(cf. SAG 1999, 2:513)
Han har fortfarande kragen
uppslagen.
he has still
the.collar up.turned
‘He still has the collar turned up.’
The different interpretations of constructions with HAVE appear to be
determined by the structure of the complement of HAVE, and by the
link between the complement and the subject (cf. in particular Belvin
1993, Ritter & Rosen 1997 and Harley 1998 who also come to this conclusion).
9.2.2. The decomposition of possessive HAVE
The fact that the interpretation of constructions with HAVE depend to a
great deal on the complement makes HAVE resemble a copular element.
We know that HAVE and BE take much the same range of complements; in many languages perfects are formed with both HAVE and BE,
and, in languages like Swedish, perfect-like constructions are. There are
also other similarities between HAVE and BE. Like BE, neither possessive nor temporal HAVE can be replaced with göra ‘do’ in tag-
In Swedish, this reading is generally unavailable or hard to get, and a construction
with GET is much preferred; cf. (ii).
(ii)
Hon fick sin
bil förstörd
av en
she got POSS.REFL car destroyed by a
‘She got her car destroyed by a mean neighbour.’
elak
mean
granne.
neighbour
349
questions or in ellipsis; cf. perfect HAVE in (9:39), possessive HAVE in
(9:40) and BE in (9:41) (and see Eide 2005:66).
(9:39)
a.
b.
(9:40)
a.
b.
(9:41)
a.
b.
Han har bott i Stockholm, har/*gör han inte?
he has lived in Stockholm
has/does he not
‘He has lived to Stockholm, hasn’t he?’
Han har bott i Stockholm, och det har/*gör hon också.
he has lived in Stockholm and that has/does she too
‘He has lived to Stockholm, and so has she.’
Han har en röd cykel, har/*gör
he has a
red bike
has/does
‘He has a red bike, hasn’t he?’
Han har en röd cykel, och det
he has a
red bike
and that
‘He has a red bike, and so has she.’
Han var trevlig, var/*gör
he was nice
was/does
‘He was nice, wasn’t he?’
Han var trevlig, och det
he was nice
and that
‘He was nice, and so was she.’
han inte?
he not
har/*gör
has/does
hon också.
she too
han inte?
he not
var/*gör
was/does
hon också.
she too
The possessive verb äga ‘own’, on the other hand, behaves like other
main verbs; cf. (9:42) and (9:43).214
(9:42)
a.
b.
(9:43)
a.
b.
214
Han äger en cykel, gör han
he owns a
bike
does he
‘He owns a bike, doesn’t he?’
Han äger en cykel, och det
he owns a
bike
and that
‘He owns a bike, and so does she.’
inte?
not
gör hon också.
does she too
Han läste, gjorde han inte?
he read did
he not
‘He read, didn’t he?’
Han läste, och det gjorde hon också.
he read and that does
she too
‘He read, and so did she.’
In British English, also possessive HAVE can raise across negation; see (i).
(i) John hadn’t the faintest idea.
(den Dikken 1997:131)
Cf. HAVE/BE-raising in French, where possessive HAVE, but not the verb posséder
‘possess’, raises (Roberts 1998:115).
350
With much previous work, we can therefore assume that both HAVE
and BE involve a copular element. Possessive HAVE in addition has an
abstract possessive meaning which BE lacks. Following Harley (1998),
we can assume that possessive HAVE decomposes into copula + a preposition (Pposs) which introduces the possessive semantics (cf. also
chapter 3 above, and Kayne 1993 on temporal HAVE). The basic function of the preposition is to relate the complement to the DP introduced
in its specifier (which will raise to subject). Hence, the different readings of HAVE + past participle all have the structure in (9:44) below (cf.
Harley 1998); the copula is represented as Cop.215
(9:44)
Possessive HAVE:
Cop [PP DPi Pposs [XP]]
The construction with HAVE + DP differs from HAVE + past participle
only in the structure of the complement; cf. (9:45a) to (9:45b), which
involves a resultant state participle (with the lower DP in spec-Asp).
(9:45)
a.
b.
Frida har en bil.
Frida has a
car
[DPi Cop [PP DPi Pposs [DPj]]]
Frida har brevet
skrivet.
Frida has the.letter written
[DPi Cop [PP DPi Pposs [AspP DPj Asp [VoiceP]]]]
The element in the specifier of Pposs is interpreted as Possessor (in a
more or less abstract sense), whereas the complement is interpreted as
Possessum. Depending on the structure of the complement, the Possessum can be either an entity or an eventuality. On the causative reading,
the subject is the Possessor of the bounded or resultative event expressed by the resultant state participle. When HAVE takes a target state participle, on the other hand, the subject is the Possessor of the target state
of the participle.
Note that the decomposition of HAVE does not in itself make HAVE
any different from other verbs; also the structure of e.g. arrive is complex. The meaning of HAVE is contributed by Pposs, the arguments, and
perhaps also by the copula; the meaning of arrive is contributed by init,
proc and res, and by the encyclopaedic content of the lexical item
215
The structure is similar to that suggested in Ritter & Rosen (1997). They represent HAVE as a combination of two functional heads, F1 and F2; the structure of
BE does not include F2. They do, however, not assume that the subject of HAVE is
introduced in F2P, but in F1P.
351
arrive. There is presumably less encyclopaedic content associated with
HAVE than with arrive.
As argued by Harley (2002) and McIntyre (2005, 2006), Schäfer
(2008a) and others, Pposs occurs also in other constructions, which therefore share properties with the constructions with HAVE; these involve
e.g. double object constructions, experiencer verbs like fear, constructions with GET and free datives. Both double object constructions and
double complement constructions can in this way be assumed to involve
prepositions; the former has a silent preposition (Pposs), whereas the
latter has a locative preposition (e.g. till ‘to’).216 Consider the examples
in (9:46) and the corresponding structures in (9:47a) and (9:47b), where
only the lowest part of the verb phrase is included (see further e.g.
Pesetsky 1995 and Harley 2002; cf. Tungseth 2008 for a discussion of
double object constructions in Norwegian).217
(9:46)
a.
b.
(9:47)
a.
b.
Hon gav honom boken.
she gave him
the.book
‘She gave him the book.’
Hon gav boken
till honom.
she gave the.book to
him
‘She gave the book to him.’
… [PP Goal Pposs [Theme]]
… [PP Theme to [Goal]]
It can be noted that the possessive preposition in the double object construction takes the Goal DP (the Possessor) in its specifier and the
Theme (Possessum) in its complement, whereas in the double complement construction, the Theme c-commands the Goal. This captures wellknown differences between the two constructions with regard to binding; cf. (9:48a) and (9:48b) (and see further Barss & Lasnik 1986,
Larson 1988, 1990 and Pesetsky 1995).
216
Among other things, this provides a means to account for different implicatures
of examples like (ia) and (ib), where the a-example (which involves Pposs) has a
much stronger implication that the students have some knowledge of French (cf.
Oehrle 1976 and Larson 1988).
(i) a.
b.
He taught the students French.
He taught French to the students.
(Harley 2002)
217 Following Ramchand (2008a), we can assume that give spells out init, proc and
res and that resP takes the silent preposition as complement (cf. also Pesetsky 1995).
352
(9:48)
a.
De gav varje
flickai hennesi kopp.
they gave every girl
her
cup
‘They gave every girl her cup.’
b. * De gav hennesi kopp till varje
flickai.
they gave her
cup to
every girl
Constructions with HAVE and constructions with BE + a locative preposition differ in a similar way; consider the contrast in (9:49) and cf.
the locative construction with BE in (9:50). With HAVE, the Possessor
DP can be the antecedent of an anaphor in the Possessum but not vice
versa; with BE, the Possessum can be the antecedent of an anaphor in
the Possessor, but not vice versa.
(9:49)
(9:50)
a.
Varje ägarei ska
ha sini
hund i
every owner should have his/her dog in
‘Every owner should have his/her dog in leash.’
b. * Dessi ägare ska
ha varje
hundi
its
owner should have every dog
koppel.
leash
i koppel.
in leash
a.
Varje hundi ska
vara
med sini
ägare.
every dog
should be
with POSS.REFL owner
‘Every dog should be with its owner.’
b. * Dess ägare ska
vara med
varje
hund.
its owner should be with
every dog
Harley (2002) shows that expressions of possession in languages that
lack HAVE differ from constructions with HAVE (in languages that
have HAVE) with regard to the binding relation between Possessor and
Possessum, just like the constructions with HAVE and BE contrast in
Swedish. In Irish, the Possessor does not c-command the Possessum;
consider (9:51).
(9:51)
* Tá ai
pheann-fhéin ag chilei
is
his pen-self
at
every
Intended: ‘Every boy has his pen.’
(Harley 2002:50)
bhuachaill
boy
Harley concludes that languages that lack HAVE lack Pposs and therefore
express possession with a locative structure similar to that in the double
complement construction. Languages like Irish, which lack Pposs not only
353
lack the verb HAVE, but also double object constructions and verbs like
fear. 218
Consider now the German dative in (9:52) below. Just like the constructions with HAVE, the dative DP in (9:52) can have a causative
reading, where Hans caused the event of breaking the vase, or an experiencer reading, where it is (negatively or positively) affected by the
breaking of the vase. This can be accounted for by the assumption that
they involve the same element, the possessive P.
(9:52)
Die
Vase zerbrach dem
Hans
the.NOM vase broke
the.DAT Hans
i. ‘Hans unintentionally caused the vase to break.’
ii. ‘The vase broke and Hans was affected.’
(Schäfer 2008a:50)
Unlike the subject of HAVE, the dative DP can, however, not express an
intentional causer. Oblique causers are only compatible with adverbs expressing non-intentionality (Schäfer 2008a, 2008b). Neither adverbs
stating intentionality nor purpose clauses are possible with dative causers; cf. (9:53a) and (9:53b).
(9:53)
a.
b.
Der
Mann zerbrach die Vase
(absichtlich/aus
the.NOM man
broke
the.ACC vase on purpose/by
Versehen/um die Versicherung zu kassieren)
mistake/in order to collect the insurance
‘The man broke the vase on purpose/by mistake/in order to collect the
insurance.’
Dem
Mann zerbrach die
Vase (*absichtlich/aus
the.DAT man
broke
the.NOM vase on purpose/by
Versehen/*um die Versicherung zu kassieren)
mistake/in order to collect the insurance
‘The vase broke for the man (*on purpose/*by mistake/*in order to
collect the insurance).’
(Schäfer 2008b:2)
Perfect-like constructions with HAVE, on the other hand, can (and often
do) have a subject that intentionally causes the participial event; con218
In Irish, the correspondence to the verb fear is BE + preposition and the noun
‘fear’ as in (i) below (see further Harley 2002).
(i)
Tá
eagla roimh an bpúca ag Ailill
is
fear before the Puca at
Ailill
‘Ailill fears the Puca’ (Lit. ‘At Ailill is fear of the Puca’)
(Noonan 1996:355)
354
sider the grammatical examples in (9:54a), which involve the adverb
avsiktligt ‘intentionally’, and (9:54b), which has a purpose clause.
(9:54)
a.
b.
Honi hade avsiktligti
Peter avskedad av chefen.
she had intentionally Peter fired
by the.boss
‘She intentionally had the boss fire Peter.’
Hon hade huset
städat för att ge ett gott intryck.
she had the.house cleaned for to make a good impression
‘She had the house cleaned to make a good impression.’
The difference between the unintentional dative causers and the possibly
intentional subject of HAVE does presumably not lie in the possessive
element that they both share, but in the additional structure associated
with HAVE, namely the copula. In passives with BE, an adverb of intentionality tends to be ambiguous; it can refer either to the intentions of
the (implicit) Agent, or to the intentions of the surface subject. As noted
in chapter 2 above, the latter reading is possible also when BE takes a
purely adjectival complement; cf. (9:55).
(9:55)
a.
b.
Hon i var avsiktligt?i/j lugnad.
she was intentionally calmed
‘She had intentionally been calmed.’
Hon i var avsiktligti
lugn.
she was intentionally calm
’She was intentionally calm.’
Hence, the intentionality of subjects of HAVE can arise when the possessive PP combines with the copula (see Lohndahl, Nygård & Åfarli
2008 and S. Rothstein 2001, who argue that BE has some semantic content).
9.2.3. Concluding remarks
In this section, we have seen that the interpretation of the perfect-like
construction with HAVE largely depends on the structure of the complement. With a target state participle (which does not express a change
or transition), the construction with HAVE expresses location or alienable/inalienable possession. With a resultant state participle, it can have
a causative reading.
In chapter 3, I assumed that temporal HAVE includes a prepositional
element (following Kayne 1993 among others). In this section, I have
(following e.g. Harley 1998, 2002) assumed that possessive HAVE in-
355
cludes a preposition (Pposs) which introduces the possessive semantics
that distinguishes HAVE from BE. I have briefly reviewed some of the
arguments for Pposs. These motivations mainly relate to the semantics of
verbs and their argument structure, and are therefore different from
those which motivated Kayne’s original proposal. Kayne started from
the observation that many languages lack HAVE and, instead, use BE
(cf. also Benveniste 1966:197, Freeze 1992), and he introduced the preposition in the structure to account for auxiliary selection. As shown by
Harley (2002), there are, however, reason to assume that the constructions with BE + preposition in languages that lack HAVE have a different structure than the constructions with HAVE in languages like
Swedish; the difference corresponds to that between the double object
and the double complement constructions.
On Kayne’s account, the subject of HAVE originates below the
preposition, and the preposition must incorporate into the copula for
movement of certain kinds of subjects to the matrix clause to be
possible. The verb HAVE is a consequence of incorporation of P into
BE, and the copula is realized as BE either because P does not incorporate, or because it is missing from the structure. Instead, I have taken the
subject of possessive HAVE to be introduced in the specifier of Pposs,
and I assume that BE never has Pposs in its structure.
9.3. Temporal HAVE and PT
In this section, I consider some differences between possessive and
temporal HAVE and how they can be accounted for under the assumption that the prepositional element of temporal HAVE is not Pposs but a
temporal preposition PT, as sketched in chapter 3. Since I assume that
both prepositions make a semantic contribution, I will end up rejecting
the Kaynean analysis of auxiliary selection.
9.3.1. Possessive and temporal HAVE
In chapter 3, I proposed a (reduced) biclausal account of the perfect,
where the participle and the auxiliary have separate extended projections, and where temporal HAVE is analysed as a verb and not a functional element. I pointed out that one advantage of this account is that
possessive and temporal HAVE can be unified (cf. e.g. Kayne 1993,
356
Alexiadou 1997:98). I used the properties of HAVE to derive the semantics of the perfect.
There are, however, differences between possessive HAVE and
temporal HAVE that cannot be fully explained with reference to their
different complements. On standard assumptions, temporal HAVE, but
not possessive HAVE, is a raising verb. Hence, temporal HAVE can
occur with expletive subjects, like the raising verb verka ‘seem’, and
unlike control verbs such as besluta ‘decide’, and unlike possessive
HAVE; cf. (9:56) and (9:57).219
(9:56)
a.
b.
(9:57)
Det hade varit någon
där.
there had been somebody there
‘There had been somebody there.’
Det verkade vara någon
där.
there seemed be somebody there
‘There seemed to be somebody there.’
a. * Det
there
b. * Det
there
c. * Det
there
hade (någon)
had somebody
hade någon
had somebody
beslutade att
decided
to
väskorna packade.
the.bags packed
en bok.
a
book
vara någon
där.
be somebody there
With temporal HAVE and raising verbs like verka, there is a possibility
of splitting idioms as in (9:58). The corresponding example with besluta
‘decide’ is ungrammatical; see (9:59) (cf. Wiklund 2007:41).
(9:58)
a.
b.
Måttet
hade varit rågat.
the.measure had been full
‘They had had enough.’
(Lit. ‘The measure had been full.’)
Måttet
verkade vara rågat.
the.measure seemed be full
‘They seemed to have had enough.’
(Lit. ‘The measure seemed to be full.’)
219
As pointed out by Wiklund (2007), some control verbs allow expletive subjects,
but with a requirement that the expletive-associate DP is animate; cf. (ia) and (ib).
(i) a.
b.
Det försökte komma in någon
i källaren.
there tried
come in someone in the.basement
‘Someone tried to get into the basement.’
*Det försökte komma in vatten i källaren.
there tried
come in water in the.basement
(Wiklund 2007:41)
357
(9:59)
* Måttet
the.measure
beslutade att
decided
to
vara rågat.
be full
The supine form in the complement of temporal HAVE can take the
morphological passive in Swedish. Participles in the complement of
possessive HAVE cannot; cf. (9:60a) and (9:60b). Also this difference is
expected if the subject of HAVE is introduced by Pposs in the latter but
not in the former case.
(9:60)
a.
Brevet
hade redan skrivits
(av någon
annan).
the.letter had already write.SUP.PASS by somebody else
‘The letter had already been written (by somebody else).’
b. * Brevet
hade redan skrivets/skrivet
the.letter had already write.PART.N.SG.PASS/write. PART.N.SG.
(av någon
annan).
by somebody else
Moreover, temporal HAVE can be omitted in certain contexts, whereas
possessive HAVE cannot; cf. the perfects in (9:61) and the perfect-like
constructions with HAVE in (9:62) (and see further section 9.5 below).
(9:61)
a.
b.
(9:62)
a.
b.
Hon skulle (ha) skrivit brevet.
she should have written the.letter
‘She should have written the letter.’
hon som (har/hade) skrivit brevet
she who has/had
written the.letter
‘she who has/had written the letter’
Hon skulle *(ha) brevet
skrivet.
she should have the.letter written
‘She should have the letter written.’
hon som *(har/hade) brevet
skrivet
she who has/had
the.letter written
‘she who has/had the letter written’
To account for the difference between temporal HAVE and other uses of
HAVE, while maintaining a unified account, Ritter & Rosen (1997)
suggest that the semantic contribution of temporal HAVE is the same as
that of possessive HAVE: it makes the participial eventuality a property
of the raised subject. They base the suggestion on experiential perfects
like (9:63). As the term suggests, experiential perfect typically state that
the subject has a certain experience; in the case of (9:63), John has the
experience of reading the New York Times twice. In the words of Ritter
& Rosen, John can be said to be a two-time NYT-reader (1997:318).
358
(9:63)
John has read the New York Times twice.
(Ritter & Rosen 1997:318)
An analysis along these lines can account for the requirement that the
subject of a present perfect typically must be alive (the so-called lifetime effect). However, as pointed out in chapter 3 above, sentences like
(9:64) below are perfectly fine when the subject is not topic, e.g. in a
discussion of which people have visited Princeton. In other words, the
example in (9:64) states that Princeton (the topic) has the property of
having been visited by Einstein rather than that Einstein has the property
of having visited Princeton.
(9:64)
Einstein has visited Princeton.
(Chomsky 1971:212)
Moreover, there are obvious problems with non-referential subjects of
perfects, as noted by Ritter & Rosen; consider the examples in (9:65)
below. That is, the analysis suggested by Ritter & Rosen is particularly
problematic precisely in the examples that most clearly show that temporal HAVE is a raising verb.
(9:65)
a.
b.
Det har snöat hela
dagen.
it
has snowed whole the.day
‘It has snowed all day.’
Det har sprängts
ännu en bomb.
there has blown.up.PASS yet a
bomb
‘Yet another bomb has been blown up.’
In chapter 3 above, I proposed that the prepositional element of temporal HAVE takes temporal arguments. In this way, I accounted for the
restriction on positional past time adverbials in the perfect tense in languages like English and Swedish. This suggestion also offers a direct
way of accounting for the difference between auxiliary and main verb
HAVE with regards to theta assignment, while maintaining that HAVE
involves the copula + a preposition. In the account of possessive HAVE
outlined above, the arguments of possessive HAVE get their theta roles
from Pposs, and not from the copula. When the preposition takes temporal
arguments, the matrix subject must therefore be raised from within the
participle, just as in constructions with BE; cf. the structures of possessive HAVE in (9:66a) (where HAVE takes a resultant state participle
359
as complement) and temporal HAVE in (9:66b), where ZP is a temporal
argument.220
(9:66)
a.
b.
Possessive HAVE:
[DPi Cop [PP DPi Pposs [AspP DPj Asp [VoiceP]]]]
Temporal HAVE:
[DPi Cop [PP ZP PT [TP DPi T [AspP]]]]
To rule out examples like (9:67), we must assume that PT selects for a
tensed participle; the temporal auxiliary does not take past participial
complements.
(9:67)
* Boken
the.book
har skriven.
has written
Now, consider the semantics of PT and the relationship it establishes
between the two temporal intervals. To recapitulate, the (present or past)
perfect involves two separate assertion times, AST1 and AST2. AST2
corresponds to the perfect time span in the analysis by Iatridou et al.
(2001), and AST1 is the reference time interval. Neither of the assertion
time intervals should be confused with the event time or the speech
time; the relation between AST2 and the participial event time depends
on the aspectual morphology of the participle. Due to the participial past
tense, AST2 lies before some point in the time of HAVE (which does not
necessarily lie within AST1). To account for the restricted meaning of
the perfect in languages like English and Swedish, I suggested that the
matrix assertion time (AST1) lies within the participial assertion time, as
in (9:68) below; the barred double brackets represent AST2 (the perfect
time span), while the single brackets represent AST1, which in the present perfect lies in the present (or in the future). The relation of inclusion between the two assertion times, I assume is due to PT.
(9:68)
——[[—— [——]]]——→
In the present perfect, the participial assertion time (the perfect time
span) includes the present, and positional past time adverbials are therefore excluded. Consider the universal perfect in (9:69), where the event
220
Cf. Hoekstra (1994), who argues that possessive HAVE and temporal HAVE
differ with regard to the presence/absence of an element X in the complement; X
and not HAVE is responsible for theta-assignment, and it is present with possessive
HAVE and not with temporal HAVE.
360
time of running holds throughout AST2 and consequently also throughout AST1 (i.e. at the present).
(9:69)
Hon har sprungit i
en timme nu.
she has run
for an hour
now
‘She has been running for an hour now.’
In section 9.2.2 above, we saw that there is reason to assume that the
argument in the specifier of Pposs is interpreted as Possessor and not
Possessum; the Possessor c-commands the Possessum and not the other
way around. If the temporal preposition has the same content as Pposs
(but different arguments), we therefore expect the matrix assertion time
to be interpreted as the Possessor and the participial assertion time as the
Possessum. However, without additional assumptions, this would presumably mean that AST1 (the matrix assertion time) possesses/includes
AST2 (the participial assertion time), and not the other way around. The
Possessum otherwise never includes the Possessor; cf. (9:70a) and
(9:70b), where the cup possesses/includes the ear, and not the other way
around (cf. Postma 1997:278).
(9:70)
a. the cup has an ear
b. * the ear has a cup
The conclusion is that Pposs and PT not only differ with regard to what
kind of arguments they take (DP or ZP), but also in what kind of relationship is established between the arguments (i.e. the content of the
preposition). In other words, the change from possessive to temporal
HAVE involved a reanalysis of the content of the preposition and not
only a change in its arguments. We can assume that temporal HAVE involves a temporal preposition, which like other temporal prepositions
(and locative prepositions) takes a specifier which is interpreted as
Figure and a complement which is interpreted as Ground; the Figure is
located relative to the Ground (cf. e.g. Talmy 1978, 2000, Demirdache
& Uribe-Etxebarria 2000 and Svenonius 2007). PT has the meaning in
(in languages like English and Swedish): it places the matrix assertion
time (the Figure) within the participial assertion time (the Ground).
Compare the structure of the perfect given in (9:71) and the similar
structure of the adverbial in December as suggested by Demirdache &
361
Uribe-Etxebarria (2007) in (9:72) below; ZP is a temporal argument and
SIT is the time of December.221
(9:71)
Kim has left.
[Cop [PP AST1 PT [TP T [AspP AST2 Asp [VoiceP]]]]]
(9:72)
(Kim left) in December.
[PP AST P [ZP Z [NP SIT December]]]
(cf. Demirdache & Uribe-Etxebarria 2007:336)
In the next section, I consider one prerequisite for the reanalysis of Pposs
as PT, namely the temporal-aspectual interpretation of the perfect-like
construction with possessive HAVE and its relation to interpretation of a
perfect.
9.3.2. The time of perfect-like constructions with HAVE and the
reanalysis of Pposs
In order to understand the reanalysis of Pposs as PT, we need to consider
the temporal-aspectual interpretation of the construction with HAVE +
past participle. Resultant state participles in the complement of HAVE
are no different from resultant state participles in the complement of BE
(except that the former is necessarily passive); they are stative and involve a full verb phrase, including initP. Like resultant state participles
with BE, resultant state participles with HAVE have resultative or
bounded aspect. Consider examples like those in (9:73) (which are at
least marginally possible), where participles of atelic verbs combine
with in-adverbials.
(9:73)
a.
b.
221
Jag hade katten klappad på ett par
minuter.
I
had the.cat petted in
a
couple minutes
‘I was done with the petting of the cat in a couple of minutes.’
Jag hade blommorna vattnade på en timme.
I
had the.flowers watered
in
an hour
‘I had the flowers watered in an hour.’
I have left out EVT, the external temporal argument of the participial T, in the
structure of the perfect. One question that arises is why this temporal argument does
not block the relationship between the two assertion times. Without going into specifics, it seems to be the case that EVT must be interpreted relative to an event (time),
either to the time of the speech event or to some other eventuality (e.g. HAVE).
362
The relationship between the event time and the assertion time in resultant state participles and target state participles can be represented as
in (9:74) (cf. (6:86) and (6:87) above); the square brackets represent the
participial assertion time, + the process or transition, and × the target
state.
(9:74)
a.
b.
c.
Resultant state participles with resultative aspect:
———— [—++×××]×——→
Resultant state participles with bounded aspect:
———— [—+++—]——→
Target state participles:
—— (++)× [××××××]×——→
When it has resultative aspect, the resultant state participle conveys that
the event has culminated and that its target state holds at the end of the
assertion time. With bounded aspect, on the other hand, the participle
asserts that the event time lies within the assertion time.222 In both cases,
the eventuality has culminated or terminated before the end of the assertion time. In this sense, perfect-like constructions with HAVE + a resultant state participle express anteriority. Since target state participles
always express a target state, they can also convey anteriority, although,
as we saw in chapter 8, they do not assert process or transition in Present-Day Swedish. As with BE, progressive state participles do not
express anteriority.
However, as mentioned, resultant state participles with HAVE are
more restrictive with regard to past positional adverbial than resultant
state participles with BE; see (9:75) and (9:76).
(9:75)
a. * Jag har blommorna vattnade igår.
I
have the.flowers watered
yesterday
b. Blommorna är
vattnade igår.
the.flowers
are watered
yesterday
‘The flowers were watered yesterday.’
(9:76)
a. * Jag har artikeln
skriven 1996.
I
have the.paper written 1996
b. Artikeln är skriven 1996.
the.paper is written 1996
‘The paper was written in 1996.’
222
With bounded aspect, it is arguably the time of process or transition (the time of
the proc subevent) that lies within the assertion time, and the participle is therefore
silent with regard to the duration of the target state (if there is a target state) (cf.
chapter 8, section 8.4.2 above).
363
This restriction on temporal adverbials in the construction with possessive HAVE + participle appears to be systematic and independent of
the fact that resultant states tend to be more marginal with HAVE than
with BE. In fact, the restrictions on past time adverbials is more general
in perfect-like constructions with HAVE than in perfects. In Swedish,
perfect-like constructions with HAVE also disallow adverbs like nyligen
‘recently’ when HAVE is in the present tense, whereas present perfects
do not; cf. the perfect in (9:77a) and the perfect-like examples in
(9:77b–c).
(9:77)
a.
Han
he
b. * Han
he
c. * Han
he
har
has
har
has
har
has
nyligen skrivit ett brev.
recently written a
letter
brevet
nyligen skrivet.
the.letter recently written
nyligen brevet
skrivet.
recently the.letter written
We can conclude that the participial assertion time is not independent of
the matrix tense in the perfect-like construction with HAVE, as it is in
the corresponding perfect-like constructions with BE. In addition, the
difference between perfect-like constructions with HAVE and perfects
suggests that the restrictions on temporal adverbials should not be
derived in the same way in perfect-like constructions as in perfects.
Since HAVE has possessive semantics, but BE does not, the difference between the two is not unexpected. For the subject to have (possess) the resultant state denoted by the participle, the time of the having
and the time of the resultant state must coincide; the Possessum must
temporally coincide with the time of the possessing. In other words, the
participial assertion time must coincide with the event time of HAVE.
This does not mean that the matrix assertion time and the participial
assertion times coincide; the matrix assertion time is (due to the unbounded aspect of the stative verb HAVE) included in the time of
having, and consequently also in the participial assertion time.223 In
other words, while there is a direct relationship between the two assertion times in perfects, the relationship is indirect in perfect-like con223
This means that the participial event time need not be included in the matrix
assertion time. Consider examples like (i), which is compatible with a reading where
the journalist is currently writing the book; for me, this is, in fact, the preferred reading.
(i)
Hon har boken
skriven av
she has the.book written by
‘She has a journalist write the book.’
en
a
journalist.
journalist
364
structions with HAVE and depends on what it means for the subject to
have something. However, in both cases, the matrix assertion time is
included in the participial assertion time. When possessive HAVE is
reanalysed as temporal HAVE (i.e. when Pposs is reanalysed as PT), the
indirect relation of inclusion between the two assertion times is interpreted as a direct one.
9.3.3. BE and the German perfect
The assumption that PT denotes inclusion accounts for the restricted
meaning of the perfect in languages like English and Swedish. Something else has to be said about languages like German, where the participial assertion time does not necessarily include the matrix assertion
time.
One possibility is that temporal HAVE can have varying content in
languages like German, and that it can express also precedence, yielding
the reading of the perfect illustrated in (9:78) (cf. chapter 3 above).
(9:78)
——[[——]]—[—]——→
This would account for the fact that the perfect time span can, but need
not, overlap with the present tense in the German present perfect, as well
as the possibility of positional past time adverbials; consider again the
difference between German and English illustrated in (9:79) (= (3:76)
above).
(9:79)
a.
b.
I have always lived here (*… until recently).
Ich habe hier immer gewohnt … bis vor kurzem
I
have here always lived
until recently
(Pancheva & von Stechow 2004:(20), (21))
However, as far as I can see, we do not have to assume that the perfect
in languages like German is polysemous. Instead, we can assume that PT
is absent from the structure of the perfect in German and that the position of the assertion times relative to each other is free, as long as part of
the participial assertion time precedes the matrix assertion time (or more
precisely, the time of HAVE). On this account, German has undergone a
further development whereby PT is lost (see below chapter 10, section
10.4.2). This means that the structure of HAVE need not include a preposition in languages like German, whereas HAVE in languages like
Swedish and English must include either Pposs or PT.
365
As pointed out above, on Kayne’s (1993) account the perfect auxiliary can be realized as BE either because the preposition does not incorporate to form HAVE, or because it is altogether missing from the structure. I have instead assumed that BE is always a realization of the
copula and never has Pposs in its structure (that is, BE lacks possessive
semantics). In languages like German and Danish, which have both
HAVE and BE as temporal auxiliaries, we could assume either that perfects do not include PT (yielding a perfect of the German type) or that
also temporal BE can include PT (yielding a perfect of the Swedish type,
but with the auxiliary BE). The realization of the copula as either HAVE
or BE can consequently not always depend on the presence/absence of a
prepositional element. Instead, the account sketched above hinges on the
assumption that the copula can be realized as HAVE.
There seems to be a correlation between a perfect of the German type
and systems that have BE as a temporal auxiliary; this has previously
been suggested by Zagona (2007). I know of no language which forms
perfects only with HAVE and which allows positional past time adverbials in the present perfect. Among the Romance languages, Spanish
does not have a split auxiliary system and does not allow positional past
time adverbials in the present perfect. Italian and French, on the other
hand, have a split auxiliary system and allow positional past time
adverbials in the present perfect. English and Swedish contrast with
German and Dutch in the same way. It is possible that the loss of PT is
restricted to split auxiliary languages, or languages where the only
perfect auxiliary is BE. There is, however, no one-to-one correspondence between split auxiliary systems and the possibility of positional
adverbials in the present perfect: Danish displays an alternation between
HAVE and BE, but at least some varieties behave like the other Scandinavian languages with regard to positional past time adverbials; consider again the examples in (9:80) (and see chapter 3 above).224
(9:80)
224
a. * Han
he
b. * Ole
Ole
er kommet i går.
is come yesterday
har sovet i går
nat.
has slept yesterday night
In fact, the situation in Danish is not completely clear, and, as noted in chapter 3
above, there appears to be considerable variation between speakers. Hulthén (1944)
observes that Danish appears to be more liberal than Swedish with regard to positional past time adverbials.
366
We can assume that in the Danish varieties which disallow positional
past time adverbials in the present perfect, the development of BE-perfects involved a change in the realization of the copula in contexts with
PT + a perfect participle, and not a loss of PT in perfects with HAVE. As
we have seen, the Danish BE-perfect develops considerably later than
the HAVE-perfect. I return to the historical development in chapter 10
below.
Independently of whether temporal BE can include PT or temporal
HAVE can lack PT, an account where both Pposs and PT make a semantic
contribution leads us to the conclusion that temporal HAVE and BE can
involve the same structure, and that the Kaynean account of auxiliary
selection therefore cannot be maintained.
9.3.4. Summary
In this section, I have suggested that the structure of both temporal
HAVE and possessive HAVE involves copula + a preposition, but that
the content and the arguments of the prepositional elements distinguish
the two. In this way, I accounted for the fact that temporal HAVE is a
raising verb, whereas possessive HAVE is not, and for the semantics of
the perfect in languages like Swedish and English. Although the content
of the prepositions vary, it is similar enough to make the reanalysis
plausible.
On the present account, cross-linguistic variation in the properties of
the perfect can lie in the properties of the auxiliary, the present tense
and/or in the aspectual composition of the participle. I have suggested
that the difference between the Swedish and the German perfect depends
on the varying properties of the auxiliary. Whereas it would be possible
to account for the German perfect by assuming that temporal HAVE
(and BE) can have one of two different prepositions (denoting either inclusion or precedence), a simpler assumption is that the temporal auxiliaries HAVE and BE lack the prepositional element altogether. This
means that the grammaticalization of HAVE in German involved a reanalysis of Pposs as PT and a subsequent loss of PT.
On this account, temporal HAVE and temporal BE need not involve
different structures. In languages like German, both temporal HAVE
and BE are realizations of a copular element. In languages like Danish,
which have a perfect tense similar to the Swedish one, but which have a
split auxiliary system, both HAVE and BE can have PT in their structure.
In other words, HAVE and BE are (or can be) morphological variants of
367
the same element. In this way, I depart from the Kaynean approach to
HAVE precisely in the languages that originally motivated the analysis
of HAVE as BE + P. As noted, in the present approach, the evidence for
Pposs does not come from languages which lack HAVE but uses a construction with BE + P for possession; as shown by Harley (1998), the
syntactic properties of possessive constructions in these languages are
not identical to constructions with HAVE in e.g. English and Swedish.
In languages with HAVE, Pposs occurs also in the structure of other
verbs, e.g. ditransitives and psych-verbs like fear, and, crucially, it contributes to the argument structure and interpretation of these verbs.
Given that temporal HAVE is a raising verb which does not assign theta
roles, it is not unexpected that this element should be missing from its
structure.
In the next section, I briefly consider some further arguments for this
approach to split auxiliary systems, and the restriction on unaccusative
verbs with possessive HAVE.
9.4. A note on auxiliary selection
In the prototypical split auxiliary system, unaccusative verbs form perfects with BE, whereas transitive and unergative verbs form perfects
with HAVE; see again the Danish data in (9:81).
(9:81)
a.
b.
Peter *har/er ankommet.
Peter has/is arrived
‘Peter has arrived.’
Ole har/*er sovet.
Ole has/is slept
‘Ole has slept.’
(Bjerre & Bjerre 2007:7)
The picture is, however, more complicated than these examples suggest.
We have seen that there is cross-linguistic variation with regard to what
groups of unaccusative verbs occur with BE both in perfects and in perfect-like constructions. Moreover, differences between different groups
of verbs cannot fully account for the cross-linguistic data, even with
finer distinctions. In section 9.4.1, I briefly review some of the cross-linguistic data which I believe favour an analysis of the HAVE/BE alternation in perfects as a morphological agreement phenomenon. I will,
however, not develop a full analysis here. Section 9.4.2 concerns the
restriction on possessive HAVE with participles of unaccusative verbs.
368
9.4.1. Some cross-linguistic variation
In the previous chapters, we have seen that there is cross-linguistic and
diachronic variation with respect to the groups of unaccusatives which
are possible in the complement of BE. The discussion has centred on
perfect-like constructions with BE, and not on perfects; like English and
Icelandic, Swedish does not have (and has never had) a perfect with BE.
The variation is, however, similar in perfects. The Scandinavian data
therefore lent additional support to the Auxiliary Selection Hierarchy
that Sorace (2000) formulated on the basis of data from languages like
Italian and German, which have an alternation between HAVE and BE
also in perfects (see chapter 7, section 7.5 above). The group of verbs
that form perfects with BE in French corresponds roughly to the group
of verbs that occur in the active perfect-like construction with BE in
Swedish (disregarding reflexive verbs); cf. the French perfects in (9:82)
where the change of state verb ‘rot’ forms a perfect with HAVE, whereas the change of location verb ‘arrive’ has a perfect with BE.
(9:82)
a.
b.
Les tomates
ont pourri au
the tomatoes have rotted in.the
‘The tomatoes have rotted in the sun.’
Des
plaintes
sont arrivées
some complaints
are arrived
‘Complaints have come in continually.’
(Legendre 2007b:147f.)
soleil.
sun
continuellement.
continually
It is clear that the structure of the verb phrase, and not only the lexical
features of the participial verb, matters for auxiliary selection in both
perfects and perfect-like constructions, and do so in different ways in
different languages and at different times. We have seen that the possibility of BE + active participle in the Scandinavian languages can depend on the presence of resP in the participial verb phrase; in Swedish,
but not in Icelandic, resP is required for BE to be possible with an active
participle. Languages like German and Dutch, which have an alternation
between HAVE and BE in perfects, in a similar way have different
requirements on the complement of proc for BE to be possible; cf. the
German BE-perfect with the otherwise unergative verb danzen ‘dance’
in (9:83a) and the corresponding Dutch example in (9:83b), which has
HAVE.
(9:83)
a.
John ist stundenlang durch den Saal herumgetanzt.
John is
hours.long
through the hall around.danced
‘John has been dancing around the room for hours.’
369
b.
John heeft urenlang door
de zaal rondgedanst.
John has hours.long through the room around.danced
‘John has been dancing around the room for hours.’
(McFadden 2007:7)
Kayne (1993) assumes that incorporation of P into the copula depends
on the properties of the functional element in the participial clause
responsible for subject agreement (AgrsP), and on the number of arguments that need case. The advantage of this account is that it derives the
alternation between HAVE and BE without reference to the selectional
properties of the auxiliaries. However, the structure of the verb phrase
(the number of arguments) is not always the sole determinant of auxiliary selection; tense, mood, person and number can also affect the choice
of auxiliary (see McFadden 2007 for an overview). It is known that certain Italy-Romance varieties have a split between HAVE and BE in perfects depending on person, as well as on the structure of the participial
verb; in many Central and Southern Italy-Romance varieties the
auxiliary is always BE when the subject is in the 1st or 2nd person, but
either HAVE or BE in the 3rd person, depending on verb type (and see
e.g. Kayne 1993, Ledgeway 2000 and Bentley & Eythórsson 1999,
McFadden 2007). Several other patterns are also attested. In some
varieties, the structure of the embedded verb phrase does not affect the
alternation between HAVE and BE at all; consider the examples in
(9:84) and (9:85) from a peripheral Neapolitan dialect (cf. also the Eastern Abruzzese variety discussed by D’Alsessandro & Roberts 2007).
(9:84)
a.
b.
(9:85)
a.
b.
so’ visto a
Ciro
am seen ACC Ciro
‘I have seen Ciro’
so’ arrevato
am arrived
‘I have arrived’
(McFadden 2007; cf. Ledgeway 2000)
ha visto a
Ciro
has seen ACC Ciro
‘He has seen Ciro’
ha arrevato
has arrived
‘He has arrived’
(McFadden 2007:8; cf. Ledgeway 2000)
370
In some Italian varieties, the alternation is determined by tense. In the
Procidano dialect, for instance, the present perfect has HAVE, whereas
the pluperfect has BE; see (9:86).
(9:86)
a.
b.
jé nun hó/*so’
sturiéto, ma…
I not have/am studied
but
‘I haven’t studied, but…’
a primma lenza nen lu
fovo
at first
look non him was.1SG
‘at first I had not recognized him’
(Ledgeway 2000:202)
canisciuto
known
To account for the cross-linguistic variation, Kayne is forced to make
several additional assumptions about the varying properties of AgrsP
(see also Ledgeway 2000). Instead, the analysis of HAVE and BE outlined in the previous section views the two auxiliaries as different realizations of the copula, depending on its feature set-up. We can assume
that the copula Agrees with the participle, and that its realization therefore depends on the feature set-up of the embedded predicate; what the
relevant features are varies.225 The alternation between temporal HAVE
and BE is in this way viewed as a phenomenon on a par with agreement;
this is also what the cross-linguistic variation suggests (see Bentley &
Eythórsson 2003 for a similar conclusion). In other words, an analysis of
auxiliary selection requires closer consideration of the features of the
participle and the syntactic Agreement between participle and its
argument(s).226 While the fine-grained verb phrase structure assumed
makes it possible to make the relevant distinctions among the unaccusative verbs, it leaves open the question how agreement between the
verb and its arguments is established; there is, in fact, no simplex ‘verb’
in the structure.
More germane for the present purposes, the historical origin of split
auxiliary systems is the alternation between HAVE and BE in perfectlike constructions. As we have seen, this alternation can be found in
languages like Swedish: only past participles of unaccusative verbs can
have an active reading in the complement of BE in Swedish, and un-
225
For a technical definition and discussion of the operation Agree, see e.g.
Chomsky (2001, 2006) and Pesetsky & Torrego (2007).
226 In the simple case, the copula is realized as BE when it shares nominal features
with the participle, and as HAVE when it does not, assuming that the nominal
features of the verb are valued by an object DP in transitive structures, while the
nominal features of the copula are valued by the subject DP.
371
accusative verbs generally do not occur in the complement of possessive
HAVE. This alternation is the topic of the next section.
9.4.2. Possessive HAVE + unaccusative verbs
There is, as we have seen, an alternation between HAVE and BE also in
perfect-like constructions; unaccusative verbs do not occur in the complement of possessive HAVE, and transitive and unergative verbs do not
have active participles in the complement of BE; cf. (9:87) and (9:88).
(9:87)
a. * Han är boken
skriven.
he is the.book written
b. Han har boken
skriven.
he has the.book written
‘He has the book written.’
(9:88)
a.
Barnen
är
hemkomna.
the.children are home.come
‘The children have come home.’
b. * Barnen
har hemkomna.
the.children have home.come.PTC.PL
In one respect, the alternation between HAVE and BE in perfect-like
constructions is notably different from that in perfects. All verbs form
perfects, and if a group of unaccusatives do not have perfects with BE in
a language like Danish, they have a perfect with HAVE. The same
cannot be said about perfect-like constructions; there are many unaccusative verbs which are ungrammatical in the perfect-like construction with BE in Present-Day Swedish without being possible in the
perfect-like construction with HAVE. Examples like those in (9:89),
which involve possessive HAVE + a participle of an unaccusative verb,
are ungrammatical, regardless of whether the unaccusative verb is
grammatical in the complement of BE or not; cf. (9:90). In other words,
whereas auxiliary selection in perfects can be viewed as a kind of agreement phenomenon, the alternation in perfect-like constructions cannot.
(9:89)
a. * Vi
we
b. * Vi
we
har
have
har
have
(gästerna)
the.guests
(löven)
the.leaves
anlända.
arrived
gulnade.
yellowed
372
(9:90)
a.
Gästerna är
anlända.
the.guests are arrived
‘The guests have arrived.’
b. * Löven
är
gulnade.
the.leaves are yellowed
Hence, we need a way to exclude unaccusatives from the complement of
HAVE that does not depend on whether BE is possible or not.
The restriction is, however, not completely general. As expected, the
few unaccusatives that have target state participles are grammatical in
the complement of possessive HAVE in examples like (9:91). I have
marked both examples in (9:91) as slightly degraded, but this seems to
depend on the difficulty of finding a context.227 Target state participles
of unaccusative verbs tend to express that something is away from the
deictic centre, while possession tends to express that it is not.
(9:91)
a.
?
b.
?
Han
he
Han
he
har
has
har
has
fortfarande grannen
bortrest.
still
the.neighbour away.travelled
fortfarande nycklarna försvunna.
still
the.keys
disappeared
In chapter 8 above, I argued that target state participles do not include
initP (and procP) and an implicit argument. Target state participles of
unaccusative verbs therefore have the same structure as target state
participles of transitive verbs. The fact that examples like (9:91) are
marginally grammatical provides additional support for this assumption.
This leaves us with a restriction on resultant state participles in the
complement of possessive HAVE.
Egerland (1996:121ff.) accounts for the restriction on unaccusatives
in the complement of possessive HAVE by assuming that the case of the
lower DP must be checked within the participial clause; since unaccusative verbs with standard assumptions do not check structural accusative
case, they are ungrammatical with possessive HAVE. On this account, it
remains unclear how the object DP receives case in examples like
(9:92), or in examples with target state participles.
(9:92)
227
Nu har vi
gästerna här.
now have we the.guests here
‘Now, we have the guests here.’
There is variation between speakers with regard to the acceptability of examples
like (9:91), as with many other examples with possessive HAVE + participle.
373
Instead, we could assume that participles in the complement of possessive HAVE are necessarily passive, like participles in the complement of BECOME in Swedish and BE in English, but unlike the
Swedish construction with BE. Minimally, this means that they involve
an implicit argument; consider again the example in (9:93), where the
external argument of the participial verb is realized by a by-phrase.
(9:93)
Jag vill ha brevet
renskrivet
av sekreteraren.
I
want have the.letter clean.written by the.secretary
‘I want to have a fair copy of the letter made by the secretary’
Given that the participial small clause requires also an explicit DP, the
participial verb must allow a transitive structure; unaccusative verbs do
not.228
There is one further restriction on perfect-like constructions that
should be accounted for, namely the restriction on BE + active participles of unergative and transitive verbs, as in (9:94).
(9:94)
* Han är boken
he is the.book
skriven.
written
In chapter 10, I suggest that the external argument of transitive and
unergative verbs cannot be spelled out in the absence of T in the structure, for reasons of case. To account for the ungrammaticality of examples like (9:94), we have to assume, in addition, that the external
argument cannot be licensed by the matrix clause. As pointed out in
chapter 7, BE is often taken to be an unaccusative verb, and, in German,
228
It is possible that the requirement that resultant state participles in the complement of possessive HAVE are passive in turn depends on the relation between the
Possessor and the Possessum established by possessive HAVE, and that events like
arrive cannot be possessed by a participant who is not also the Initiator, Undergoer
and Resultee of the arriving event. However, it should be noted that free datives,
which presumably also include Pposs, are compatible with unaccusative verbs (see
(9:52) above and cf. Schäfer 2008a). The restriction on participles of unaccusative
verbs in the complement of HAVE is, in fact, not completely categorical for all
speakers; I judge examples like (i) as grammatical.
(i) Nu har
vi
äntligen barnen
hemkomna.
now have we finally the.children home.come
‘Now, we finally have the children home.
Since there is no implicit argument, the clause subject cannot be interpreted as coreferent with the Initiator of the participial event, and examples like these can
therefore not be reanalysed as perfects.
374
it forms a perfect with BE. Like unaccusative verbs like arrive, BE
requires an intransitive structure, at least in languages like Swedish and
English.229
9.4.3. Summary
In this section, I have considered some of the cross-linguistic variation
in the HAVE/BE alternation in perfects. Since the choice of auxiliary
can depend on e.g. person, number and tense, as well as verb phrase
structure, an account that treats auxiliary selection as a morphological
realization of feature agreement between copula and participle seems to
be called for.
I have also briefly considered the restriction on participles of unaccusative verbs in the complement of possessive HAVE. I observed
that target state participles are possible with HAVE independently of its
being formed from an unaccusative or a transitive verb. Participles with
event implications are on the other hand necessarily passive (with some
exceptions). In these respects, the restrictions resemble those of BE in
English.
In the next section, I briefly consider the question of HAVE-omission
in Swedish, focusing on omission of the finite auxiliary. The question is
whether the possibility of finite auxiliary omission relates to some other
property of the perfect (participle). I will not attempt to give a full analysis of auxiliary omission.
9.5. A remark on HAVE-omission
As noted in chapter 7, some 17th century writers use reduced forms of
temporal HAVE in both present and past perfects; see e.g. the example
in (9:95), where the form hafwa is used for past tense hade/hadhe.
(9:95)
229
Och finge wi mången dag
and got we many.a day
när
di
hafwa nog
when they have
enough
icke
not
lupi
run
en bit mat för än sent,
a
bit food until
late
omkringh.
around
There are many languages where examples corresponding to (9:94) are grammatical, and, as noted, the verb HAVE is cross-linguistically rare.
375
‘And many days, we did not get any food until late, when they had
run around enough.’
(Horn *1629:33)
Also many Present-Day Swedish varieties have a reduced form of temporal HAVE (see Ljunggren 1934, Nordberg 1985a and references cited
there). Possessive HAVE, on the other hand, does not have reduced
forms; cf. the perfects in (9:96), which in my variety allow the reduced
form ha for present tense har, and the possessive constructions in (9:97),
which do not.
(9:96)
a.
b.
(9:97)
a.
b.
Jag har/ha gjort det.
I
have
done it
‘I have done it.’
Jag har/ha diskat.
I
have
done.the.dishes
‘I have done the dishes.’
Jag har/*ha gröna byxor.
I
have
green pants
’I have green pants.’
Jag har/*ha den skriven.
I
have
it
written
‘I have it written.’
In some present-day varieties, also past tense HAVE can have a reduced
form (ha for hade), as in the 17th century example in (9:95) above. In
Nordberg’s (1985a) study of the spoken language in Eskilstuna (a town
in Central Sweden), 0,2 % of the examples with past tense possessive
HAVE and 42,6 % of the examples with past tense temporal HAVE involved a reduced form of HAVE. It is known that auxiliaries as opposed
to main verbs often are reduced; see e.g. van Gelderen (2004;170ff.)
who notes that reduced forms of HAVE starts appearing in Old English,
and become more frequent in Middle English, as the perfect develops.
In Present-Day Swedish, the finite auxiliary HAVE can be omitted
completely in subordinate clauses, as we have seen.230 This is not pos-
230
In the PAROLE corpus of Present-Day Swedish, the newspaper material omits
HAVE in 83 % of the subordinate clauses with perfects; the corresponding number
for the literary texts in PAROLE is 67 % (Andréasson et al. 2002:68; cf. Malmgren
1985). In spoken Swedish, around 10–15 % of the cases lack HAVE (see Andréasson et al. 2002:69 and references cited there).
376
sible in the other Scandinavian languages; cf. Swedish in (9:98) and
Norwegian in (9:99). 231
(9:98)
Jag vet att hon (har) skrivit brevet.
I
know that she has written the.letter
‘I know that she has written the letter.’
(9:99)
Jeg vet at
hun *(har) skrevet brevet.
I
know that she has
written the.letter
‘I know that she has written the letter.’
In one respect, omission of HAVE clearly depends on the properties of
the perfect: like the reduced forms, it is restricted to temporal HAVE; cf.
the example with possessive HAVE in (9:100a) to the perfect in
(9:100b). This is not unexpected, since possessive HAVE and temporal
HAVE are structurally distinct, and since possessive HAVE (Pposs), but
not temporal HAVE, assigns theta roles to the DP arguments.
(9:100) a.
b.
Hon undrar
vem som *(har) hennes bok.
she wonders who that has
her
book
‘She is wondering who has her book.’
Hon undrar
vem som (har) tagit
hennes bok.
she wonders who that has taken her
book
‘She is wondering who has taken her book.’
The possibility to omit finite HAVE does not otherwise seem to depend
on the syntax-semantics of the perfect participle, and it has no effects on
the interpretation of the perfect. It is not restricted to certain tenses, or to
e.g. certain modal contexts. All readings of the perfect and all kinds of
predicates are possible; cf. (9:101).232
231
Non-finite HAVE-omission is possible in certain contexts also in Norwegian;
see the examples in (i). I refer to Julien (2002) for a discussion.
(i)
Det ville
fått langt større konsekvenser
that would got far greater consequences
‘That would [have] had far greater consequences.’
(BOKMÅL)
232 Since both present and past tense HAVE can be omitted, we cannot know
whether HAVE-omission affects the possibility of positional past time adverbials in
the present perfect.
377
(9:101) a.
b.
c.
d.
eftersom han (har/hade) besökt dem flera
gånger
since
he
has/had visited them several times
‘since he has/had visited them several times’
(Experiential)
eftersom han alltid (har/hade) bott där
since
he always has/had
lived there
‘since he has/had always lived there’
(Universal)
eftersom han (har/hade) varit sjuk den senaste tiden
since
he has/had
been sick the latest time
‘since he has/had been sick lately’
(Recent Past)
eftersom han precis (har/hade) tappat sina glasögon
since
he just
has/had
lost
REFL glasses
‘since he has/had just lost his glasses’
(Resultative)
Moreover, omission of HAVE is not directly dependent on the matrix
tense, or even on the presence of a matrix clause. As pointed out by
Andréasson, Karlsson, Magnusson & Tingsell (2002), HAVE can be
omitted in exclamatives like (9:102). Whether the interpretation is that
of a present perfect or a past perfect is determined by the context.233
(9:102)
Vilken snögubbe du (har/hade) byggt!
what
snowman you have/had built
‘What a snowman you have/had built!’
(Andréasson et al. 2002:70)
HAVE can be omitted also in main clauses with kanske ‘maybe’ where
the finite verb does not move to C; see (9:103).234
(9:103)
Han kanske inte (har) skrivit brevet
ännu.
he maybe not has written the.letter yet
‘He has maybe not written the letter yet.’
Julien (2002) suggests that finite HAVE can be silent as long as none of
its morphological components (tense and finiteness) has a unique
function, i.e. as long as some overt element shares the features of
HAVE. Specifically, she proposes that when finite HAVE is not spelled
233
This does not preclude that finite auxiliary omission is dispreferred in contexts
where the omitted temporal information cannot easily be supplied (cf. Malmgren
1985).
234 For a discussion of the syntax of kanske, see e.g. Andréassson (2002) and
Egerland (1998).
378
out, the subject must be overtly realized in the specifier of HAVE.235 As
pointed out by Andréasson et al. (2002), this account makes the wrong
predictions with regard to subject extraction; examples like (9:104) are
perfectly grammatical.236
(9:104)
men Kalle hoppas jag klarat
but Kalle hope
I
managed
‘but Kalle, I hope made it’
(Andréasson et al. 2002:73)
sig
REFL
As far as I can see, the only systematic restriction on finite auxiliary
omission is that HAVE has not moved to C (cf. Platzack 1986). That is,
omission of the finite auxiliary has no semantic consequences, and it is
unrestricted in non-V2 contexts. A copy/trace of the subject appears to
be enough to identify the position of HAVE in finite clauses. Therefore,
it seems likely that Swedish has a null auxiliary HAVE, which can be
used as long as it is not in a position that must be overt (e.g. C).
It is possible that omission of the auxiliary is made available by the
fact that temporal HAVE always combines with a past tense participle
and that the participle plays a part in the identification of the silent
element. In any case, HAVE-omission should not be tied to the specific
morphology of the supine form in Present-Day Swedish. There are a few
examples of finite auxiliary omission from the end of the 15th century;
see (9:105). As we will see in chapter 10 below, the morphological distinction between supine and past participle was not fully established
even in the 17th century.
235
Following Holmberg (2000), Julien (2002) suggests that som ‘that’, which is
otherwise generally analysed as a complementizer, should be treated as a relativized
subject. In this way, also the presence of som can identify the features of HAVE.
236 Julien marks the example in (i) as ungrammatical with HAVE omitted.
(i) Kallei
kan jag garantera [C ti *(har) klarat
Kalle
can I
guarantee
has
managed
‘As for Kalle, I can guarantee he has made it.’
(Julien 2002:76)
sig.]
REFL
I do not share this intuition; although HAVE-omission is the marked option in (i),
the example is not ungrammatical without HAVE. Also with overt HAVE, it has a
flavour of casual spoken language.
379
(9:105)
at giffwa honom fore all skada,
som
han honom
to give
him
for all damage which he him
giorth, x
marck reda
peninga
done
ten mark ready money
‘to give him for all the damage which he [had] done him, ten mark
ready money’
(Stockholms stads tänkebok 1481:304, from Moberg 1993:145)
Disregarding poetry, the earliest clear examples of omission of finite
HAVE that I have noted in the material investigated here are from
Samuel Columbus (*1629); two of these are given in (9:106).
(9:106) a.
b.
den kar’n som de penningarne utlefwererat,
det är
the the.man who that the.money
deliver.PTC
that is
en skälm
a
scoundrel
‘the man who [has] delivered that money he is a scoundrel’
(Columbus, I *1642:62)
Därpå frågade han om
faar-sins
mördare, om de
then asked he about father.POSS.REFL murderers if
they
ännu stått
sitt
straff
yet stood POSS.REFL punishment
‘Then he asked about his fathers murderers, if they [had] yet received
their punishment.’
(Columbus I *1642:33)
The early examples of finite auxiliary omission are scarce, but at the end
of the 17th century omission comes in fashion, as observed in chapter 7
above. It seems clear that auxiliary omission was part also of the spoken
language of the time. In the play Sprätthöken by Gyllenborg (*1679),
HAVE is frequently omitted (cf. Widmark 1969:67–70); among the
examples with unaccusative verbs collected in chapter 7, there is only a
single subordinate clause with an explicit finite HAVE (cf. Table 7.6
above). Similarly, in the diary by Robert Petré (born 1681 in Arboga in
Central Sweden) the auxiliary is omitted in 90 % of the cases (Platzack
1983:50).
Auxiliary omission is always optional, and it is therefore difficult to
estimate the time when the possibility first emerged. However, the fact
that there are (to my knowledge) no clear cases of auxiliary omission before the end of the 15th century suggests that the possibility was missing
before that time. This means that the emergence of finite auxiliary
omission falls within a period from the 15th to the late 17th century that
is characterized by a large number of other changes in the linguistic system; many of these changes take effect in the beginning of the 18th
380
century (cf. Platzack 1983, Magnusson 2007). Some of the changes relate to the realization of finite verbs. In particular, it is around this time
that Swedish loses the requirement of overt agreement morphology and
verb movement to T (see e.g. K. Larsson 1988 and Falk 1993; cf.
Platzack 1989); cf. the Old Swedish subordinate clause in (9:107a) and
the corresponding Present-Day Swedish example in (9:107b).
(9:107) a.
b.
V-to-T movement (Old Swedish):
när thet är ey stenoghth
when it
is not stony
‘when it is not stony’
(Peder Månsson c. 1515; from Platzack 1988b:250)
No V-to-T movement (Modern Swedish):
när det inte är stenigt
when it
not is stony
’when it is not stony’
The frequency of the old word order with V-to-T movement drops in the
period between the end of the 15th century and the beginning of the 18th
century (see Falk 1993:176, Table 2). We can assume that as long as the
auxiliary shows agreement and moves to T, it cannot be omitted, just
like it cannot be omitted in main clauses in Present-Day Swedish, since
C must be spelled out.237 The early examples of auxiliary omission are
then tied to the possibility of the new word order.
Finite HAVE can be omitted in subordinate clauses also in Early
Modern German; see (9:108). It is well known that German exerted influence on Swedish at the time, and it has sometimes been assumed that
finite HAVE omission (or the null auxiliary) is a German loan (see Moberg 1993 and references cited there).
(9:108)
237
Als nun die Storcken ausgelacht,
gerachtschagt sich
when now the storks
finished.laughing deliberated REFL
Gargantua mit seim Hofgesind
Gargantua with his domestics
‘When the storks [had] finished laughing, Gargantua deliberated with
his domestics’
(Early Modern German, 1590; from Breithbart 2005:1)
Also in Old Swedish, the verb was often not realized in T; in main clauses it
moved to C, just as in Present-Day Swedish. The ban on omission of HAVE from T
and C can therefore not be understood directly in terms of conditions for phonological spell-out of a particular position.
381
Auxiliary omission appears in German at around the same time as we
find the first examples in Swedish, namely in the 15th century (Breithbart 2005).238 There seems to be a connection between the increase of
auxiliary omission in 16th century German and a drop in the frequency
of subordinate clauses that are not verb final (Breithbart 2005:104).239
The frequency of auxiliary omission changes again in German in the
17th century, and the number of examples of omission drops considerably. According to Breitbarth, the possibility of auxiliary omission
exists also in Present-Day German, although it is stylistically marked as
archaic.
German auxiliary omission is not restricted to perfects, as it is in
Swedish. BE (and to some degree also BECOME) is optional both in
perfects, passives and copular constructions, and both BE and HAVE
can be omitted in constructions with non-bare infinitives; see the copular construction in (9:109a), the eventive passive in (9:109b) and the
infinitival in (9:109c).
(9:109) a.
b.
238
da er nun shuldig / wird gewißlich ein erstlich Exempel
if he now guilty will certainly a
serious example
an jhme statuirt werden.
of
him made become
‘If he now [is] found guilty, he a serious example will certainly be
made of him.’
(Early Modern German, 1609; from Breitbarth 2005:4)
als
nun den dritten Tag/ der Hauptman von allen
when now the third
day the major
of
all
Officirn vnd Herrn von Hoff ins
Closter
zu den
officers and sirs
from court into.the monastery to
the
Augustinern zur
begrebnis begleitet
Augustinians to.the funeral accompanied
‘when on the third day the captain [was] accompanied to the funeral
in the monastery of the Augustinians by all officers and noblemen of
the court…’
(Early Modern German, 1609; from Breitbarth 2005:3)
Also German auxiliary omission has sometimes been explained as a loan, in this
case from Latin, although it is unclear what the corresponding construction in Latin
would be (see Breitbarth 2005 and references cited there).
239 In Swedish, verb final subordinate clauses disappear in the end of the 17th
century, i.e. when auxiliary omission becomes frequent (see Platzack 1983).
382
c.
das also nichts sonders inn der Jnsel
dieweil sie nit
that thus nothing special in
the island while it
not
bewohnet wirt zufinden dann allein die wilde Capparen
inhabited is
to.find
than alone the wild
capers
‘that thus on this island, which is not inhabited, nothing special can
[be] found apart from wild capers’
(Early Modern German, 1587; from Breitbarth 2005:3)
It is not impossible that Swedish HAVE-omission is due partly to German influence during the 15th and 16th century (in combination with
changes in the morphology and placement of finite verbs). It is, however, hardly a question of syntactic borrowing in any strict sense. Since
German auxiliary omission is not restricted to the temporal auxiliary
HAVE, it is presumably a question of ellipsis (deletion of phonological
material) (see Breithbart 2005 and references given there). Swedish auxiliary omission, on the other hand, appears to be a lexical phenomenon;
it is restricted to temporal HAVE. As far as I can see, there is no reason
to assume that this correlates with a change in the properties of the participle. Moreover, nothing suggests that HAVE has a different structure in
Swedish than it does in e.g. Norwegian. As we have seen, the semantics
of the perfect in Norwegian is very similar to that in Swedish.
9.6. Summary
In this chapter, we have seen that possessive HAVE takes the same
range of complements as BE in Swedish. I have assumed that both
HAVE and BE have a copular element in their structure. Possessive
HAVE in addition involves a possessive preposition, Pposs; Pposs introduces the external argument in its specifier and establishes a possessive
relation between the external argument and the complement.
In perfect-like constructions, Pposs can take a resultant state participle
with bounded aspect. Due to the possessive semantics, the participial
assertion time and the time of having must coincide. This means that the
matrix assertion time is necessarily included in the participial assertion
time in the perfect-like construction with HAVE. I have suggested that
temporal HAVE emerges when this indirect relation between the two
assertion times is reanalysed as a direct one; Pposs is reanalysed as a
temporal preposition, PT, which places the matrix assertion time within
the participial assertion time. As a consequence HAVE also becomes a
raising verb.
383
In languages like English and Swedish, copula + PT is always realized
as HAVE, and PT always makes a semantic contribution. I suggested
that languages like German, which allow positional past time adverbials
in the perfect, have undergone an additional development whereby PT
has been lost. The German temporal auxiliaries HAVE and BE are
therefore both realizations of the copula. I pointed out that the loss of PT
is plausibly tied to a system that employs BE as a temporal auxiliary.
At the end of the chapter, I briefly discussed the possibility of
omitting finite forms of temporal HAVE in subordinate clauses in Present-Day Swedish, as opposed to e.g. Norwegian. I concluded that this
possibility does not force us to assume a difference between Swedish
and Norwegian with respect to the structure of temporal HAVE or the
structure of the perfect participle.
384
10. On the development of the perfect
The discussion in the previous chapters has led to more fine-grained distinctions among the past participles. In the spirit of analyses of nominalizations such as Abney (1987) and Alexiadou (2001), I have argued that
en-participles involve structures of different size; they can, but need not,
include a full verb phrase, and they can, but need not, include AspP and
TP. What parts of the verb phrase are included vary between languages,
presumably due to the properties of the participial stativizer. In PresentDay Swedish, the stativizer attaches to initP or resP, and not to procP,
while in older Swedish it could attach also to procP. Since the target
state and progressive state readings depend on the structure of the verb
phrase (the presence/absence of resP), we can predict what verbs they
are formed from, and account for the fact that no verb is compatible
with both. Resultant state participles involve more structure and have an
independent aspectual value; they are therefore less lexically restricted
and more similar to perfect participles. In chapter 6, I suggested that the
use of resultant state participles was less constrained in older Swedish
than in Present-Day Swedish; this is why the construction with BE looks
more like a perfect in older Swedish, just like the construction with vera
búinn að does in Present-Day Icelandic. Neither the older Swedish construction with BE nor vera búinn að does, however, have all properties
of a perfect, and both are ungrammatical in past counterfactuals.
In chapter 4 above, I gave an overview of the early appearances of
perfects in the Old Germanic records, focusing in particular on Scandinavian. With previous research, I noted that Gothic lacked a perfect
tense while Old Scandinavian had one, although used less frequently
than in the present-day languages. While perfects of intransitive and
stative verbs occur in all investigated Scandinavian texts, they are rare
or non-occurring in the Old and Early Middle English sources and in the
earliest Old High German texts.
In the following, I return to perfects with HAVE to see what the
results from the preceding chapters bring to our understanding of the
early Germanic HAVE-perfects, and to the development of the perfect. I
consider whether and how case and agreement distinguish perfects from
385
perfect-like constructions. I have argued that the perfect is a tense and
that it has a complex structure which can vary somewhat between languages. The perfect participle is tensed, and in this respect differs from
past participles. Differences between past and perfect participles are
therefore likely to be tied to tense.
I start out by considering the agreement patterns of participles in the
complement of HAVE in the Old Scandinavian sources. Sections 10.2
and 10.3 concern case and the distinction between active and passive
participles. In section 10.4, I consider the development of the morphological distinction between past participle and perfect participle (supine)
in Swedish. Section 10.5 gives an overview of the historical development of the perfect.
10.1. Participle agreement in Old Scandinavian
In Present-Day Swedish, past participles in perfect-like constructions
always agree with the preceding object. Perfect participles, on the other
hand, have an invariant neuter singular or supine form throughout the
Germanic languages; cf. again the perfect-like construction in (10:1a)
and the perfect in (10:1b) (and see chapter 4, section 4.1.2 above).
Agreement in the perfect-like construction with HAVE is always with
the object, and never with the subject (as in constructions with BE).
(10:1)
a.
b.
Frida har redan väskorna packade.
Frida has already the.bags pack.PRET.PL
‘Frida already has the bags packed.’
Frida har redan packat
väskorna.
Frida has already pack.SUP the.bags
‘Frida has already packed the bags.’
In this section, I consider the examples with agreeing participles in the
Old Scandinavian records.
10.1.1. HAVE + agreeing participle in Old Scandinavian
As noted in chapter 9, Present-Day Swedish has perfect-like constructions with HAVE, but examples are rare and often marked. Also in the
16th and 17th century texts investigated in chapter 5 and 7, there are rare
cases with HAVE + an agreeing participle; cf. (10:2).
386
(10:2)
a.
b.
Syslomännenar skola ingen intaga j Hospitalen
the.managers
should no.one in.take in the.hospital
för än the haffua Förmyndarenar åtsporda och til rådz.
before they have
the.guardians
ask.PTC.PL and to advice
‘The managers should not admit anyone in the hospital before they
have asked and conferred with the guardians.’
(L. Petri *1499:196)
de som hafwe sine tankar
afwende
ifrån
they who have their thoughts away.turn.PTC.PL from
täd rätta liuset
som
är Gudh
the right the.light which is God
‘those who have their thoughts turned from the right light which is
God’
(Columbus I *1642:19)
Examples are equally rare in the oldest Swedish records. In the four Old
Swedish texts investigated in chapter 4 above (section 4.3), a total of
four examples of HAVE + participle involve unambiguously agreeing
participles. Three of these are from Gutalagen; one is given in (10:3a);
the other two are very similar. The fourth example, given in (10:3b), is
from Ett fornsvenskt legendarium; it has a passive reading: a mother
wants her son to be saved by someone.
(10:3)
a.
b.
Hafr erfilytia aign
lutna.
has heiress land.F.SG.ACC. allot.PTC.F.SG.ACC.
‘An heiress has been alloted land.’
(GL c.1300:20)
ok hialpar eigh. frælsa min son æn þu vilt haua
and help
not save
my son but you want have
þin son
frælsan
your son.M.SG.ACC. save.PTC.M.SG.ACC.
‘and [you] do not help saving my son, but you want to have your son
saved’
(Leg c. 1300:25)
As pointed out in chapter 4, we can assume that past participles in the
complement of HAVE always agree with the object DP in Old Swedish;
we do not expect less agreement in Old Swedish than in Present-Day
Swedish. The conclusion is therefore that the great majority of the
transitive participles in the complement of HAVE are perfects also in
Old Swedish.
Two of the Old Norse texts, the Edda and the law Grágás, stand out
by having a larger number of agreeing participles with HAVE. In this
respect they can be assumed to represent an older or more conservative
language than the other Scandinavian texts in the material (cf. Ekbo
387
1943); from what we otherwise know of these texts, this is not unexpected.
Table 10.1 below gives the number of agreeing and non-agreeing
participles in the complement of HAVE in the Edda and the Grágás.
Only transitive verbs with explicit accusative DP objects are included in
the data. A few examples with double objects are included. Since nonagreeing participles have the neuter singular form, examples with neuter
singular objects are treated as ambiguous. With feminine or masculine
objects, the form of the participle is always unambiguously agreeing or
non-agreeing.
TABLE 10.1.
Text
Object–participle agreement with HAVE in the Edda and
the Grágás.
Agreeing
forms
44 (48 %)
27 (48 %)
Edda
Grágás
Ambiguous
forms
25 (27 %)
11 (20 %)
Non-agreeing
forms
22 (24 %)
18 (32 %)
ALL
91
56
In both texts, almost half of the examples with accusative objects involve unambiguously agreeing participles. Ekbo (1943) gives similar
figures for the Old Norse Skaldic poetry from the period before the 13th
century: around 47 % (85/179) of the participles in the complement of
HAVE are inflected, and around 22 % (40/179) are not (cf. also Barnes
1969). This is in sharp contrast to the four examples in the Old Swedish
records. Recall from chapter 4 above that all investigated Scandinavian
texts have clear evidence for a perfect tense; consider the perfects of
vera ‘be’ in examples from the Edda and the Grágás in (10:4).
(10:4)
a.
b.
en þat hefir lengi verit siúkom ok sárom
gaman
but that has long been sick
and wounded advantage
‘but that has long been an advantage to the sick and wounded’
(Edda Fi. 36)
er
eina nótt hafa menn verit á þingi
when one night have men
been at thing
‘when when men have been at the Thing for one night’
(Grágás 110, p. 189)
The question is if examples with agreeing participles should be analysed
as perfects, i.e. if Old Norse, unlike Old Swedish and the present-day
languages, had agreeing perfect participles. This would mean that the
perfect-like construction was reanalysed as a perfect without any change
in morphology, and that agreement was lost in perfects in a later de-
388
velopment. In Old Swedish, agreement in perfects had then already been
lost in the oldest sources. Ekbo (1943) appears to suggest an account
along these lines when he assumes that the examples with HAVE + an
accusative object and a non-agreeing participle are constructed in analogy with examples with HAVE-perfects of intransitive verbs, which
never involve agreeing participles. There is, however, no evidence for a
stage where intransitive verbs form perfects, and where participles in the
complement of HAVE consistently agree with an accusative object
when there is one. As far as I know, all texts which involve more than
single examples of HAVE + participle, and which have perfects of intransitive verbs, also have non-agreeing participles of transitive verbs in
the complement of HAVE. In the Swedish runic inscriptions, there are
examples of HAVE + non-agreeing transitive participles; see (10:5).
(10:5)
in
ulfr hafiR o [o]nklati þru kialt
[t]akat
and Ulfr has
in England three payments.N.PL take.PTC.N.SG
‘And Ulfr has taken three payments in England.’
(U 344)
In Romance, perfect participles in the complement of HAVE can show
agreement in certain syntactic contexts (see Belletti 2006 for an overview). For instance, perfect participles agree with (3rd person) direct object clitics in Standard Italian; see (10:6).
(10:6)
L’ho
conosciuta
ieri.
her(cl) have.1.SG know.PTC.FEM.SG yesterday
‘I knew her yesterday.’ (Lit. ‘I have known her yesterday.’)
(Belletti 2006:494)
In an influential account of participle agreement, Kayne (1989) argues
that participle agreement is established in a spec-head configuration in
an Agreement phrase (AgrP). In this way, Kayne captures the correlation between object movement and agreement and accounts for contrasts
like that between (10:7a) and (10:7b–c) in French; (10:7a) has a full DP
to the right of the participle whereas (10:7b–c) involve clitic movement
or wh-movement through spec-Agr.240
240
D’Alessandro & Roberts (2008) propose a phase-based alternative to Kayne’s
(1989) analysis without referring to spec-head agreement (cf. also Holmberg 2002).
Instead, they suggest that agreement requires the participle and the DP with which it
agrees to be contained within the complement of the same phase head; a phase is
understood as a domain with morphological and semantic integrity. Crucially, an in
389
(10:7)
a.
b.
c.
Paul a
repeint/*repeintes
les chaises.
Paul has repainted.SG/repaint.PTC.F.PL the chairs
‘Paul has repainted the chairs.’
Paul les a
repeintes.
Paul them has repainted.F.PL
‘Paul has repainted them.’
les chaises que Paul a
repeintes
the chairs that Paul has repaint.PTC.F.PL
‘the chairs that Paul has repainted’
(Kayne 1989:86)
In Present-Day Swedish, there is a similar connection between word
order and agreement in constructions with past participles. Past participles agree with a preceding (subject or object) DP, but not with a
following DP; cf. the passives in (10:8) (and see Holmberg 2002 and
references cited there).
(10:8)
a.
b.
c.
??
Det blev
gjorda/gjort
flera
saker.
there became done.PL/done.N.SG several things
‘Several things were done.’
Det blev
flera
saker gjorda/*gjort.
there became several things do.PTC.PL/do.PTC.N.SG
‘Several things were done.’
Flera saker blev
gjorda/*gjort.
several things became done.PL/done.N.SG
‘Several things were done.’
In Icelandic, on the other hand, a past participle obligatorily agrees with
the object DP independently of word order; see (10:9).
(10:9)
Það hafa verið skrifaðar/*skrifað
there have been write.PTC.F.PL/write.PTC.N.SG
um
þetta.
about
this
‘Three books have been written about this.’
(Holmberg 2002:86)
þrjár bækur
three books.F.PL
According to Ekbo (1943), there is no correlation between agreement
and word order in constructions with HAVE + participle in the Old
Norse records. As Ekbo’s investigation is based largely on poetry, his
results should be treated with caution. However, also the Grágás has
examples with participles that agree with a following object, as well as
situ object of a transitive verb is not contained within the complement of the same
phase head as the verb; the verb is in the phase head or higher.
390
examples where an object precedes a non-agreeing participle; cf.
(10:10a) and (10:10b).
(10:10) a.
b.
þvi
at
hann hafe drepiN
hann.
because that he had kill.PTC.M.SG.ACC he. PTC.M.SG.ACC
‘because he had him killed’
(Grágás 86, p. 149)
ef hann hefir engi maN
til fengit
fyrir
if he has no man.M.SG.ACC to get.PTC.N.SG for
ondverðo
at
lysa.
the.beginning
to
charge
‘if he did not get anybody to press charges from the beginning’
(Grágás 87, p. 151)
As noted in section 4.1.2 above, some Romance dialects have participles
that agree also with a full DP to the right of the participle. This is
possible in literary Italian; see again the example in (10:11).
(10:11)
Maria ha conosciute
Maria has know.PTC.FEM.PL
‘Maria has known the girls.’
(Belletti 2006:502)
le
the
ragazze
girl.FEM.PL
Belletti (2006) points out that Kayne’s account could be maintained if
we assume that the order participle–object can be derived by movement
of the object to spec-Agr and consequent movement of the participle to
a position above Agr. Since agreement appears to be optional in Old
Norse, either movement to Agr does not always have a morphological
reflex, or examples like (10.10b) involve movement of the object to a
preverbal position below Agr, that is, assuming that examples with and
examples without agreement involve the same basic structure and differ
only in morphology or in the position of the object or participle. As we
will see below, this is not necessarily the case.
Tenseless participles are inflected to varying extent in the present-day
Germanic languages. As we have already seen, Swedish and Icelandic
past participles agree with a subject or object DP. In Norwegian, there
is, as noted, considerable variation with regard to participle inflection
(see e.g. Faarlund et al. 1997). In Bokmål, as in Danish, participles with
verbal structure are generally not inflected; consider the examples with
possessive HAVE + participle in (10:12) (cf. e.g. Hulthén 1944, Diderichsen 1944, and see chapter 2 above).
391
(10:12) a.
b.
Høgskolene
bør
ha erfaringer
knyttet
både
the.universities should have experience.PL tie.PTC.N.SG both
til
rurale og urbane strøk.
to
rural and urban areas
‘The universities should have experiences tied to both rural and urban
areas’
(BOKMÅL)
Fartøyer uten
dekk skal
ha kassene
ships
without deck should have the.box.PL
tildekket.
cover.PTC.N.SG
‘Ships without a deck should have the boxes covered.’
(BOKMÅL)
There is, as far as I know, no variation in the inflection of perfect participles in Germanic; perfect participles are not inflected in any of the
present-day languages. If we assume that the oldest Scandinavian languages had agreeing perfect participles, like e.g. Italian does, it is, in
fact, surprising that there is no evidence for agreeing perfect participles
in the earliest Old Swedish texts and that agreement is lost also in Old
Norse, and in all Scandinavian dialects. Since the perfect tense is a
rather recent innovation in Old Swedish, we must assume that agreement with perfect participles was lost very rapidly, and without leaving
any trace. The Old Swedish inflectional system does otherwise not
change until centuries later, and in Icelandic agreement has not been lost
elsewhere. The change from OV- to VO-order takes place during the
14th century in Swedish, and in Icelandic the frequency of the OV-order
does not drop until in the 18th and 19th century (see Delsing 1999, Hróarsdóttir 2000). On the whole, it seems implausible that perfect participles were ever inflected in Scandinavian.
An alternative worth exploring is that the agreeing participles in the
Edda and the Grágás are not perfect participles, but past participles. In
the next section, I therefore look closer at what kind of examples involves agreeing participles.
10.1.2. Types of agreeing participles in the complement of HAVE
in Old Norse
Barnes (1969:57 fn. 7), who assumes that constructions with HAVE +
agreeing participle in Old Norse may be perfects, points to examples
where an agreeing and a non-agreeing participle are coordinated; see
392
(10:13) and cf. the Old Swedish runic inscription repeated in (10:14)
(from (4:24) above).
(10:13)
Áðr
hafði Gunnarr særða
átta menn enn
earlier had Gunnarr wound.PTC.M.PL.ACC eight men and
vegið
þá tvo
kill.PTC.N.SG then two
‘Earlier, Gunnarr had wounded eight men and then killed two’
(Njáls saga; FORNRIT)
(10:14)
sbiut × / × saR × uisitaula × um × uaRit :
hafþi ×
Spjót
who
in.the.west
PRT
be.PTC.N.SG had
burg ×
um brutna :
i : auk × um
town.F.SG.ACC PRT break.PTC.F.SG.ACC in and PRT
barþa
beat.PTC.F.SG.ACC
‘Spjót, who had been in the west, broken down and fought in towns’
(Sö 106)
However, the possibility of coordination should not necessarily be taken
as evidence for complete syntactic identity (see Magnusson 2007). In
older Swedish, BE can be omitted in coordinations with HAVE, whether
it takes an active or a passive complement; cf. (10:15) and (10:16) (=
(7:6c) above), where the first conjuncts involve HAVE + non-agreeing
(perfect) participles and the second conjuncts have agreeing (past) participles.
(10:15)
hwarigenom Magneten icke hafwer allenast mist
sin
whereby
the.magnet not have only lose.PTC.N.SG POSS.REFL
Krafft,
uthan och Kistan
blifwen
förderfwat
power.C.SG but
also the.chest.C.SG become.PTC.C.SG ruined
‘whereby the magnet has not only lost its power, but the chest [had]
also been ruined.’
(Kiöping *1621:23)
(10:16)
han hade gift
sigh men ike vigd
medh
he had married REFL but not wed.PTC.M.SG with
‘he had got married but [is] not wed to her’
(Bureus I *1568:226)
henne
her
Furthermore, there are no examples of past counterfactuals with HAVE
+ agreeing participle in the investigated texts. This does, however, not
tell us much; on the whole, past counterfactuals with pluperfect morphology are rare in the Old Norse records.
393
The types of examples with HAVE + agreeing participle are not
necessarily different from those that can be found also in Present-Day
Swedish. Examples like (10:17) can, for instance, correspond to a construction with an agreeing target state participle in Present-Day Swedish; cf. (10:18).
(10:17)
Ec hefi Hlórrida
hamar
um fólginn
I have the.thunderer’s hammer.M.SG.ACC PRT hide.PTC.M.SG.ACC
‘I have the hammer of the Thunderer hidden.’
(Edda Þrk. 8)
(10:18)
Jag har den
fortfarande
I
have it.C.SG still
‘I still have it hidden.’
gömd.
hide.PTC.C.SG
Participle agreement is not restricted to participles with a target state
reading; consider the examples in (10:19) with participles of the verbs
telja ‘count, mention’ and kanna ‘review, muster’, neither of which is
expected to have a target state participle.
(10:19) a.
nú hefi ec dverga / […]
rétt
um talða
now have I dwarf.M.PL.ACC rightly PRT mention.PTC.M.PL.ACC
‘Now, I have mentioned the dwarfs rightly.’
(Edda Vsp. 12)
Hefir þú kannaða
koni
óneisa?
have
you muster.PTC.M.PL.ACC man.M.PL.ACC valiant
‘Have you mustered the valiant men?’
(Edda HH I 23)
b.
The examples in (10:19) are rather typical resultant state participles;
(10:19a) states that a ‘job’ has been done, and (10:19b) asks if it has
been. Both of them are (at least marginally) possible in Present-Day
Swedish, given the right context; see (10:20), and cf. also the resultant
state passives with BE in (10:21).
(10:20) a.
b.
(10:21) a.
?
Nu har jag dem äntligen räknade.
now have I
them finally count.PTC.PL
‘I have finally counted them.’
Jag har redan alla männen mönstrade.
I
have already all the.men muster.PTC.PL
‘I have already mustered all the men.’
De är
redan räknade.
they are already count.PTC.PL
‘They have already been counted.’
394
b.
Männen är
mönstrade.
the.men
are muster.PTC.PL
‘The men are mustered.’
A couple of the examples with agreeing participles involve frequency
adverbials; see (10:22). Since resultant state participles can be modified
by adverbials of frequency or iteration, this does not force us to assume
that perfect participles could agree with an object DP in Old Norse.
Þú hefir etnar
úlfa
krásir /
ok brœðr
you have eat.PTC.F.PL.ACC wolves’
food.F.PL.ACC and brother
þínom at
bana
orðit, / opt sár
sogin
yours for slayer become often wound.N.PL. suck.PTC.N.PL.
með svǫlom munni
with cool
mouth
‘You have eaten the food of wolves and become your brothers slayer,
often sucked wounds with cool mouth’
(HH I 36)
(10:22)
There are a few examples in Old Norse where HAVE appears to take an
agreeing participle of a stative verb. In my material, there are two potential examples; see the examples in (10:23), which involve participles of
the verbs eiga ‘own’ and hafa ‘have’. According to the list of verbs provided by Barnes (1969:88), both eiga and hafa have agreeing participles
with HAVE up until the 14th century. Examples with non-agreeing participles are, however, more common.
(10:23) a.
b.
Þrár
hafðar
er
ek hefi til þíns
longing.F.PL.ACC have.PTC.F.PL.ACC that I have to your
gamans, /en þú til míns munar: / nú er þatt satt, at
vit
lust
and you to my love
now is it
true that we
slíta skulom / ævi ok aldri saman.
spend should life and age together
‘The longings I have had for your lust and you for my love: now it is
true that we should spend our life and age together.’
(Edda Fi. 50)
Þar muno eptir undrsamligar /gullnar tǫflor
í grasi
there will after wonderful
golden chequers.F.PL.NOM in grass
finnaz, / þærs í árdaga
áttar
hǫfðo
found.ST those in ancient.times possess.PTC.F.PL.ACC had
‘There afterwards will be found in the grass the wonderful golden
chequers, those which [they] possessed in the ancient times.’
(Edda Vsp. 61)
395
It is not impossible that there are stative verbs that form participles with
a resultant state reading, although these are expected to be restricted and
marked. We have seen that stative verbs can sometimes combine with
bounded aspect in active sentences (yielding an inchoative reading).
This would account for the prenominal participle havda ‘had’ which can
occur in Present-Day Swedish, but which is highly marked; cf. (10:24),
which has the interpretation that there have been costs, and not the
progressive state reading that there are costs.
(10:24)
Den havda
kostnaden måste
the have.PTC.C.SG cost
must
‘It must be verified what the cost was.’
(Google)
verifieras
verify.INF.PASS
Regardless of whether stative verbs sometimes have resultant state
participles or not, it is not self-evident that examples like those in
(10:23) are unambiguous perfects. In (10:23a), it is likely that the participle hafðar is part of the noun phrase (i.e. ‘had longings’). The example
in (10:23b), on the other hand, might involve a progressive state participle; the interpretation is that they possessed the chequers in ancient
times, rather than that they had possessed them.
However, for examples like (10:25), which also involves eiga, a progressive state interpretation is unlikely, and a resultant state or perfect
tense reading is closer at hand.
(10:25)
Eg hefi margar orustur
áttar,
stundum
I
have many battle.F.PL.ACC own. PTC.F.PL.ACC sometimes
með meira liði, stundum minna.
with more men sometimes less
‘I have fought many battles, sometimes with more men. sometimes
with less.’
(Heimskringla; FORNRIT)
It is, in fact, likely that neither hafa nor eiga have exclusively stative
uses in Old Norse.241 For instance, you can eiga handsöl ‘shake hands,
make a bargain’ (lit. ‘own a hand-sale’), or, as in (10:25) above, eiga
orrustu ‘fight’ (lit. ‘own a battle’). Eiga has an -st-form meaning ‘fight
each another’; see (10:26).
241
As noted in chapter 9 above, Present-Day English HAVE has eventive uses (cf.
Harley 1998).
396
(10:26)
Þá gekk fram
Hjörvarðr, ok áttust
þeir Oddr við
then went forward Hjörvarðr and own.PRET.ST them Oddr by
hart vápnaskipti.
hard exchange.of.blows
‘Then Hjörvarðr went forward and fought with Oddr in a hard
exchange of blows.’
(Hervarar saga og Heiðreks; FORNRIT)
Moreover, participles of the verb HAVE are not restricted to perfects.
Consider the example in (10:27) which involves a past participle of
HAVE with a passive reading.
(10:27)
Voru þá hafðar
af honum sannar sögur og sagði
were then have.PRT.F.PL of him
true
tale.F.PL and said
hann þá allt hversu farið hafði með þeim Vigfúsi
he then all what
gone had with them Vigfus
‘Then they had a true tale of him, and he told them all that had
happened between him and Vigfus.’
(Eyrbyggja saga; FORNRIT)
As far as I can see from the list of verbs provided by Barnes (1969) and
the texts investigated here, there is little reason to assume that stative
verbs have agreeing participles with HAVE in Old Norse, disregarding
examples with participles of HAVE and eiga, and examples with a progressive state reading.242
Although there is an extended use of agreeing participles in Old
Norse, there is thus little conclusive evidence that perfect participles
were ever inflected. Since there is no evidence for agreeing perfect participles in Old Swedish, in the (other) investigated Old Norse texts, or in
the present-day Scandinavian languages (although there is considerable
variation with regard to past participle inflection), I conclude that perfect participles have never been inflected in the Scandinavian languages.
More generally, tensed verb forms do not agree with accusative objects
in Germanic.243
242
In Barnes’s material, there is a single example of an agreeing participle of halda
‘hold’ in the complement of HAVE; he does not give the reference and he does not
comment on its reading. Verbs meaning ‘hold’ tends to get a progressive state
reading in the complement of possessive HAVE.
243 Hence, there is no difference between earlier and later Old Norse in this respect.
Instead, the question is why there is a difference between Germanic and Romance.
Verb morphology is generally richer in Romance than in Germanic (see e.g. Biberauer & Roberts 2006), and also person-driven auxiliary selection is absent in Germanic (see D’Alessandro & Roberts 2007).
397
10.1.3. Conclusion
At first sight, the simplest way to account for the frequent perfectlooking examples with agreeing participles in Old Norse is to assume
that perfect participles could agree with an object DP in Old Norse, as
they can in e.g. Italian. This is what e.g. Johannisson (1945) and Barnes
(1969) assume. However, since it leaves the absence of perfect participle
agreement in Old Swedish and in the present-day languages unexplained, I believe that this is not the right way to go. Instead, I suggest that
tensed participles were never inflected in the Germanic languages, and
that the examples of agreeing participles in the complement of HAVE in
the Edda and the Grágás all involve tenseless perfect-like constructions.
The perfect tense emerges when the ambiguous neuter singular past participles of transitive verbs are analysed as being tensed.
As pointed out in chapter 4, one prerequisite for the reanalysis of the
perfect-like construction with HAVE + participle as a perfect is that the
two constructions have a similar interpretation and that the perfect-like
construction has the expected distribution of tense morphology. In other
words, in a situation where the perfect-like construction is rare (as in
e.g. Gothic and Present-Day Swedish), we do not expect it to be reinterpreted as a tense. Instead, it is plausible that the development of the
perfect begins with an extended use of resultant state participles with
HAVE at some point in Old Germanic. The early development of the
HAVE-perfect thus parallels the change in the distribution of the
perfect-like constructions with BE and vera búinn að. In Old Swedish,
there was sometimes a choice between a resultant state construction with
BE and a perfect with HAVE. In Present-Day Icelandic there is often a
choice between a resultant state construction with vera búinn að and a
perfect with HAVE (cf. Wide 2002 and Larsson 2009, and see chapter 6
above). If the account of the agreeing participles in the Old Norse
sources is on the right track, this was the case also in Old Norse: there
was a choice between a construction with HAVE + an agreeing resultant
state participle and a perfect with HAVE + a non-agreeing participle.
The fact that agreeing participles are more common in the Edda and the
Grágás than in both Gothic and Old Swedish suggests that the change
had started in Old Norse, but that the perfect tense was not yet fully
established.
In the next section, I consider – and dismiss – another possible diagnostic for distinguishing perfects from perfect-like constructions,
namely case.
398
10.2. Case in the Old Germanic sources
As noted, it is often assumed that past participles do not assign structural
case and that they differ from perfect participles in this respect. With
this assumption, an object DP gets case from the participle in perfects,
but from HAVE in perfect-like constructions. Since HAVE assigns
accusative case, examples with HAVE and genitive and dative objects
are therefore sometimes taken as evidence for a perfect tense (see e.g.
Wischer 2004; cf. chapter 4, section 4.1.3 above).
In the Old Scandinavian sources, genitive and dative objects are not
uncommon in the construction with HAVE; consider the Old Norse examples in (10:28) and the Old Swedish examples in (10:29) (and cf.
chapter 4 above).
(10:28) a.
b.
(10:29) a.
b.
Nú hefi ec hefnt
harma
minna
now have I revenged sorrow.M.PL.GEN my.M.PL.GEN
‘Now I have revenged my sorrows’
(Edda Vkv. 28)
Svipom
hefi ec nú ypt
fyr sigtíva
sonom
look.M.SG.DAT have I now shown for fighting.gods’ sons
‘I have now shown my face to the sons of the fighting gods’
(Edda Grm. 45)
Nu skal bonde þæn
sins
hauir mist ingangæ
now shall farmer who.M.SG.ACC his.M.SG.GEN has lost in.go
‘Now a farmer who has lost his [property] shall go in’
(ÄVgL c. 1220:Tj. 5)
Huer sum […] hafi firigart
sinum
halsi.
every who
has forfeited his.M.SG.DAT neck.M.SG.DAT
‘Everyone who […] has forfeited his neck.’
(GL c.1300:63)
However, it is not totally true that past participles cannot assign genitive
or dative case. It is, in fact, well known that dative case is retained in
passives in Icelandic; cf. (10:30a) to the corresponding passive in
(10:30b). Participles in eventive passives can in other words assign
dative case to an argument.
(10:30) a.
b.
Skipstjórinn sökkti skipinu.
the.captain sank
the.ship.DAT
‘The captain sank the ship.’
Skipinu
var sökkt af
skipstjóranum
the.ship.DAT was sunk
by the.captain
‘The ship was sunk by the captain.’
(Zaenen & Maling 1984:141f.)
399
In stative passives, on the other hand, dative case is not preserved in
Present-Day Icelandic; cf. the eventive passive in (10:31a), which has a
dative subject, and the stative passive in (10:31b), which has a nominative subject.
(10:31) a.
b.
Dyrunum
var lokað
(af dyraverðinum) klukkan sjö.
the.door.DAT was lock.PTC.N.SG by the.porter
the.clock seven
‘The door was closed (by the porter) at seven o’clock.’
Dyrnar
var lokaðar
(*af dyraverðinum)
the.door.F.PL.NOM was lock.PTC.F.PL by the.porter
klukkan
sjö.
the.clock seven
‘The door had been closed (*by the porter) at seven o’clock.’
(Svenonius 2006:(28), (29))
It seems clear that the emergence of the perfect should be viewed as a
reanalysis of a stative construction. Throughout this thesis, we have observed that stative perfect-like constructions with HAVE and BE can
have an interpretation very similar to that of a perfect. This is, however,
not the case with eventive passives; cf. the examples in (10:32). While
both the resultative with HAVE in (10:32a) and the perfect in (10:32b)
express anteriority, the GET-passive in (10:32c) does not. The stative
and eventive passives with BE and BECOME differ in the same way;
see (10:33).
(10:32) a.
b.
c.
(10:33) a.
b.
Nu har jag boken
skriven.
now have I
the.book written
‘Now I have the book written.’
E(writing) < S
Nu har jag skrivit boken.
now have I
written the.book
‘Now I have written the book.’
E(writing) < S
Nu får jag boken
skriven.
now get I
the.book written
‘Now I am getting the book written.’
E(writing) ≥ S
Boken
är skriven.
the.book is written
‘The book has been written.’
E(writing) < S
Boken
blir
skriven.
the.book becomes written
‘The book is being written.’
E(writing) ≥ S
400
Moreover, there is no correlation between languages that have eventive
passives with BE and languages that have perfects with BE; English has
the former but not the latter, whereas German has the latter but not the
former.
However, it is not clear that it is the difference between stativity and
eventivity per se that determines whether dative is preserved in passives
or not; it might instead be the presence or absence of initP that is relevant (or a combination of factors). Like stative passives in German,
the Icelandic stative passive seems to lack initP. Examples like (10:31b)
do not allow an agentive by-phrase, and instrument adverbials are not
possible; cf. (10:34) (and see further Svenonius 2006).
(10:34)
Dyrnar
var lokaðar
(*með fjarstýringu).
the.door.F.PL.NOM was lock.PTC.F.PL. with remote.control
‘The door had been closed (*with remote control).’
(Svenonius 2006:15)
Since there are stative verbs with dative objects, it seems likely that
eventivity is not required for dative to be preserved in passives. Instead,
we can assume that dative arguments require an initP. Since there are
Germanic languages which have stative participles which include initP,
we cannot exclude that dative and genitive objects were possible in
perfect-like constructions with HAVE in Old Germanic. In chapter 4
above, I noted that, in Gothic, there are examples of passives with BE
having agent adverbials.244
If dative and genitive objects are available also in perfect-like constructions with HAVE, we expect them to appear before we have intransitive verbs in the complement of HAVE. According to Ekbo (1943:
127), it is the other way around: verbs with dative and genitive objects
are the last to occur in perfect-type constructions with HAVE. However,
Ekbo treats cases of object-drop as involving intransitive verbs and
states that the first “intransitives” that appear with HAVE are verbs that
otherwise generally take accusative objects. As far as I can see, the
historical records are inconclusive as to what comes first, perfects of
244
In Old Swedish, there are examples of BE-passives with dative DPs; see (i).
Oblique datives are possible with BE also in languages like German; cf chapter 5
and 7 above.
(i)
oc
sagdhe hwat hænne var drømt
and said
what she.DAT was dreamt
‘and said what she had dreamt’
(Bil c. 1300:917; from Falk 1997:36)
401
intransitive verbs or HAVE + participle and a genitive or dative object.
Beowulf has several examples with genitive objects and a couple of
intransitive verbs in the complement of HAVE (see chapter 4 above);
the text by Otfrid has neither participles of intransitive verbs nor genitive or dative objects embedded under HAVE. In the study of Old English by Wischer (2004), 5 % of the participles in the complement of
HAVE have genitive objects, 6 % are intransitive (or lack an explicit
object).
The presence of dative and genitive objects in the complement of
HAVE thus says little about the historical development of the perfect. In
the next section, I consider the question of (structural) accusative case in
constructions with past and perfect participles.
10.3. Passive and active en-participles
For unergative and transitive verbs, the development of the perfect involves a change from a passive structure with an implicit argument to an
active structure. In this section, I will tentatively suggest that this difference between past and perfect participles is directly related to the presence/absence of Tense, and briefly discuss some of the consequences of
such a proposal.
10.3.1. Passive, active and case
At least since Chomsky (1981), passivization has standardly been understood in terms of absorption of abstract accusative Case; the need for
Case drives movement of the object to subject position. It is well known
that accusative case is systematically missing in Icelandic passives; see
(10:35) (and cf. e.g. Zaenen & Maling 1984, Sigurðsson 1989, Svenonius 2006). With Burzio’s (1986) generalization the absorption of case
is tied to the demotion of the external argument: only verbs with an
external argument can assign accusative case.
(10:35) a.
b.
Stormurinn
blés strompinn
af
húsinu.
the.storm.NOM blew the.chimney.ACC off the.house
‘The storm blew the chimney off the house.’
Strompurinn
var blásinn af
húsinu.
the.chimney.NOM was blown off the.house
‘The chimney was blown off the house.’
(Zaenen & Maling 1984:145)
402
However, abstract accusative case sometimes seems to be available in
passives. In languages like Swedish, either object can remain verb
phrase internal in passives of ditransitive verbs; cf. (10:36) and (10:37)
(which all have a progressive state reading). 245
(10:36) a.
b.
(10:37) a.
b.
Den hästen/han
är fortfarande erbjuden henne.
that the.horse/he.SUBJ is still
offered
she.OBJ
Hon
är fortfarande erbjuden den hästen/honom.
she.SUBJ is still
offered
that the.horse/he.OBJ
‘She is still offered that horse/him.’
Den hästen/han
är fortfarande garanterad
henne.
that the.horse/he.SUBJ is still
guaranteed her.OBJ
Hon
är fortfarande garanterad
den hästen/honom.
she.SUBJ is still
guaranteed that the.horse/he.OBJ
‘She is still guaranteed that horse/him.’
Åfarli (1992) concludes that passivization should not be understood in
terms of absorption of accusative case (cf. also Emonds 2006). To him,
the essential property of passives is instead that the external argument is
implicit (or in his terms, that the subject position is theta-free). This in
turn raises the question why morphological accusative disappears under
passivization in languages like Icelandic, and why the subject of an unaccusative verb generally has nominative and not accusative case. Åfarli
(1992:66) suggests that a DP may be assigned case depending on the
position in which it is realized, independently of whether it has been
assigned case in a lower position.246 He points to pseudopassives where
a pronoun has been promoted from an oblique position to subject, and is
realized with subject case; cf. the Present-Day Swedish examples in
(10:38) and (10:39) where the preposition arguably assigns oblique case
to the pronoun han/honom ‘he/him’ in both cases (and cf. Åfarli 1992:
66f.).
245
See e.g. Anagnostopoulou (2003b) and Platzack (2005) for discussion of why
languages like Swedish allow either of the objects of ditransitive verbs to be
promoted to subject.
246 Morphological accusative is sometimes referred to as a dependent case, since it
generally is dependent on the presence of a morphologically nominative argument.
Cf. Platzack (2006b) who argues that a DP which Agrees with T, or with two probes
with interpretable tense-features and uninterpretable phi-features (i.e. v, p or T), is
spelled out with nominative case in Icelandic. See also e.g. Sigurðsson (2003, 2006)
for a discussion of the nature of case.
403
De
gjorde alltid narr av honom.
they
made always fool of he.OBJ
‘They always made fool of him.’
Han
gjordes
ideligen
narr av.
he.SUBJ make.PRET.PASS continually fool of
‘He was continually made fun of.’
(SAG 1999, 4:370)
(10:38)
(10:39)
It can be noted that accusative is available in the absence of (an explicit)
nominative DP in the so-called ‘New Passive’ in Icelandic; consider the
examples in (10:40), which are accepted by some speakers (see further
e.g. Maling & Sigurjóndóttir 2002, Thráinsson 2007).247 Even for Icelandic, it is therefore not altogether unproblematic to tie past participle
formation to absorption of accusative case.248
(10:40) a.
b.
Það var barið
strák.
there was hit.PTC.N.SG. boy.M.SG.ACC
‘A boy was hit.’
Það var lamið
stúlkuna
í klessu.
there was beat.PTC.N.SG. girl.F.SG.ACC in mess
‘The girl was badly beaten up.’
(Thráinsson 2007:274f.)
As we have seen throughout the previous chapters, past participial
morphology is not restricted to passives, but also occurs with unaccusative verbs. In this respect, it differs from the morphological passive ssuffix, which necessarily yields an (impersonal) passive reading also
with unaccusatives; cf. (10:41a), which involves BE + an active participle, to (10:41b), which is a morphological passive.
(10:41) a.
b.
Några var redan hemkomna.
some were already home.come
‘Some people had already come home.’
Det/*folk
koms
och gicks.
there/people come.PRET.PASS and go.PRET.PASS
‘There/*people was coming and going.’
247
The það in the New Passive is the ordinary expletive, and it is only possible in
initial position; cf. (i).
(i) * Var það lamið stúlkuna í klessu.
was there beaten the.girl
in mess
(Thráinsson 2007:275 fn.15)
248 This is independent of whether we take the New Passive to involve a silent
nominative element, as suggested by Maling & Sigurjóndóttir (2002), or analyse it
as a passive (with an implicit argument).
404
Past participial morphology behaves in a similar way throughout the
Germanic languages, and independently of whether the languages employ the participle to form a perfect tense; consider the Gothic example
in (10:42) (and see Larsson 2006 and references cited there). We can
therefore conclude that participial morphology does not necessarily ‘absorb’ an argument.
ik im sa
hlaifs libanda, sa
us himina qumana
I am the bread living the from heaven come.PTC
‘I am the living bread come from heaven.’
(John 6:51)
(10:42)
Nevertheless, the external argument of unergative and transitive verbs
cannot be expressed (without by/av) in constructions with past participles in languages like Swedish and English; consider the examples in
(10:43) and (10:44). In this respect, past participles differ crucially from
perfect participles.
(10:43) a.
en man tidigt hemkommen
a man early home.come
‘a man who came home early’
b. * en man sjungen (en sång) redan
i början
av konserten
a man sung
a song already in the.beginning of the.concert
Intended: ‘a man who sang (a song) already in the.beginning of the
concert.’
c. * en känd
författare skriven en artikel
a famous author
written a paper
Intended: ‘a famous author who wrote a paper’
(10:44) a.
b.
en sång sjungen av en man i början
av konserten
a song sung
by a man in the.beginning of
the.concert
‘a song sung by a man in the beginning of the concert’
en artikel skriven av en känd
författare
a
paper written by a
famous author
‘a paper written by a famous author’
Given the analysis of past and perfect participles that I have outlined in
the previous chapters, it seems reasonable to explain the fact that past
participles are passive or unaccusative with the absence of T. A fairly
standard assumption is that the external argument of a transitive verb
gets abstract nominative case from an element outside the verb phrase,
typically T (see e.g. Chomsky 1995, Alexiadou & Anagnostopoulou
2001, 2007, Platzack 2006b and many others). It is therefore expected
that past participles lack the ability to assign nominative case. Leaving
405
morphological case aside, we can assume that only one argument can be
licensed verb phrase internally, and that this is possible also for unaccusative verbs. Since unaccusative verbs only have one argument
(with structural case), no argument must be ‘absorbed’ or implicit when
T is absent. Due to Pposs, two arguments can be licensed verb phrase
internally in ditransitive structures (cf. section 9.2.2 above), and both
can also be expressed in passives. The external argument of transitive or
unergative verbs can, on the other hand, not be expressed unless it can
be licensed outside the participial clause, or by a preposition.249
We thus expect past participles to have a passive/unaccusative reading unless an external argument can be assigned case in a matrix clause.
Assuming that PRO, unlike the implicit argument in passives, is case
marked (as argued by Sigurðsson 1991), past participles of transitive or
unergative verbs can therefore not have an active reading in control constructions. This does, however, not mean that past participles are universally passive/unaccusative. An active transitive reading should be
possible also outside the perfect tense, given that the external argument
can be case-licensed. In the next section, I briefly consider a couple of
contexts where this could be the case, namely constructions with active
participles in the complement of gita ‘be able to’ in Old Swedish, geta
‘may’ in Icelandic and GET in Present-Day Swedish. I leave a full investigation of these constructions for future work.
10.3.2. A note on GET-participles
In older Swedish, the verb gita ‘be able to’ (cognate of get) takes an
active participial complement; see (10:45). In Icelandic, the modal geta
‘may’ does; see the example in (10:46), which can have either an epistemic or a root reading.250 Note that the participle is not inflected and
that the restrictions on past participles of unergative or transitive verbs
do not apply.
249
Cf. Egerland (2002) who argues that only tensed structures allow two lexical
arguments.
250 There is one context in Present-Day Icelandic where geta takes an infinitival
complement, namely when it embeds a perfect; cf. (i).
(i)
María getur hafa
lesið
bókina.
Mary may have.INF read.PTC.N.SG the.book
‘Mary may have read the book.’ (epistemic)
(Thráinsson 2007:422)
406
(10:45) a.
b.
at
ængen manz øghon gato fæst
syn
a hanom.
that no
man’s eyes could fix.PTC.N.SG sight.F.SG on him
‘that no man could fix his eyes on him’
(LEG, p. 142)
iak giter
ekke kent
lukten
I
could not feel.PTC.N.SG the.smell.C.SG
‘I cannot stand the smell.’
(Didrik 15th c.:195)
María getur komið
á morgun.
Mary may come.PTC.N.SG tomorrow
‘Mary may come tomorrow.’ (epistemic)
‘Mary is able to come tomorrow.’ (root)
(Thráinsson 2007:422)
(10:46)
Icelandic geta is a raising verb. Unlike control verbs, it can, for instance,
take an expletive or quasi-argumental subject; cf. (10:47a) and the
control verb in (10:47b).
(10:47) a.
Það getur snjóað
á morgun.
it
may snow.PTC.N.SG tomorrow
‘It may snow tomorrow.’ (epistemic)
b. * Það vonast til að snjóa mikið í vetur.
it
hopes to to
snow much in winter
(Thráinsson 2007:424f.)
Although the evidence is weaker, the same appears to be true for Old
Swedish gita, at least in some varieties. There are examples where the
participle in the complement of gita takes passive morphology; see
(10:48).
(10:48) a.
b.
then vidirgangan älla scriptamalin gitir ey genstan
that admission
or confession
can not immediately
giordz
mz fullom hiertans idrogha
make.PTC.PASS with full
heart’s regret
‘that admission or confession cannot immediately be made with the
full regret of the heart’
(Svenska medeltidspostillor 15th c.:169)
händrena waro swa harnadha at
the gato
ey nidhir
the.hands were so hardened that they could not down
lagx
vtan vidhir naflan
put.PTC.PASS out by
the.navel
‘the hands were so stiff that they could not be put down outside the
navel.’ (About the dead Jesus who has been taken down from the
cross.)
(Birgitta 14th c.:33)
407
The corresponding modern examples are grammatical with the modal
kunna ‘be able to’, but not with the control verb förmå ‘be capable of,
manage’; cf. (10:49).
(10:49) a.
b.
Händerna kunde inte läggas
ner.
the.hands could not put.INF.PASS down
‘The hands could not be put down.’
Händerna *förmådde inte läggas
ner.
the.hands managed not put.INF.PASS down
Intended: ‘It could not be managed to put down the hands.’
Although participles in the complement of geta/gita have an active
reading, they do not denote anteriority (see further below), and they
should not be analysed as perfect participles. One possibility is that they
are (eventive) past participles, and that also participles of transitive
verbs have an active reading, since the external argument raises and gets
case in the matrix clause. The absence of this kind of examples in Present-Day Swedish and Present-Day English then depends on the absence
of raising verbs with past participial complements (other than BE and
BECOME).
This line of reasoning can, however, not be extended to all participles
in the complement of GET (få) in Swedish. In chapter 9, I noted that the
GET-passive in several ways is the eventive correspondence to the
stative perfect-like constructions with HAVE, just like the BECOMEpassive is the eventive counterpart to stative BE-passives; see the GETpassives in (10:50).
(10:50) a.
b.
Jag fick bilen
förstörd
(av min elaka
I
got the.car destroyed by my mean
‘I got the car destroyed (by my mean neighbour).’
Vi fick honom belöningen fråntagen.
we got him
the.reward from.taken
‘We got the reward taken from him.’
granne).
neighbour
However, GET can also take active participial complements in colloquial Swedish; see the examples in (10:51) and (10:52) (and cf.
Ljunggren 1934).251 In Swedish, the GET-participle can optionally have
supine morphology, and unlike past participles it does not incorporate
251
The construction with GET + active participle is stylistically marked and not
accepted by all speakers.
408
particles.252 In the following, I refer to these active participles as GETparticiples.
(10:51) a.
b.
(10:52) a.
b.
De fick taget/tagit
från honom belöningen.
they got take.PTC.N.SG/take.SUP from him
the.reward
‘They got the reward taken from him.’
Jag fick inte sovet/sovit.
I
got not sleep.PTC.N.SG/sleep.SUP
‘I didn’t get to sleep.’
Verkligen tur att du fick kommit
iväg på
really
luck that you got come.SUP away on
grannens
loppis
the.neighbour’s flea.market
‘It was really lucky that you managed to get away to the neighbour’s
flea market.’
(Google)
jag kom iallafall hem
och fick somnat
in gott
I
came at.least home and got fall.asleep.SUP in well
‘at least I came home and got to fall alseep well’
(Google)
Similar examples occur in Norwegian; see (10:53).
(10:53) a.
b.
men straks
han fikk kommet til Irland
but immediately he got come.PTC to Ireland
‘but the moment he managed to come to Ireland’
(BOKMÅL)
at
Jeltsin tydeligvis ikke fikk hvilt
nok
ut
etter
that Jeltsin apparently not got rest.PTC
enough out after
det forrige hjerteattakket
the former heart.attack
‘that Jeltsin apparently did not get enough rested after the former
heart attack’
(BOKMÅL)
In the active GET-construction, the participle can sometimes be exchanged with an infinitive without any obvious difference in meaning;
see (10:54).
252
The active and passive constructions with GET + participle are not necessarily
distinguished by word order; GET-passives allow both the order participle–object
and the order object–participle (without any clear difference in meaning). To avoid
ambiguity, the examples with active participles in the complement of GET have
supine morphology or a particle, or both.
409
Han fick sova/sovit.
he got sleep.INF/sleep.SUP
‘He got to sleep.’
(10:54)
There are, however, differences which relate to the fact that GET + infinitive involves raising, whereas GET + participle does not. First, when
GET takes a participial complement, the subject must be animate; see
(10:55).
Motorn
fick vila/*vilat.
the.engine got rest.INF/rest.SUP
‘The engine got to rest.’
(10:55)
The active construction with GET + participle does not allow expletive
subjects; see (10:56). When GET takes an infinitival complement, it
patterns with temporal HAVE and has a modal reading; cf. (10:57).
* Det fick sovit
någon
där.
there got sleep.SUP somebody there
(10:56)
(10:57) a.
b.
Det fick sova
någon
there got sleep.INF somebody
‘Somebody had to sleep there.’
Det hade sovit
någon
there had sleep.SUP somebody
‘Somebody had slept there.’
där.
there
där.
there
As noted, the supine form in the complement of temporal HAVE can
take the morphological passive in Swedish. Participles in the complement of GET cannot; cf. (10:58). Again, GET patterns with temporal
HAVE when it takes an infinitival complement; see (10:59).
(10:58) a.
Han hade redan fråntagits
jobbet (av styrelsen).
he had already from.take.SUP.PASS the.job by the.board
‘The job had already been taken from him (by the board).’
b. * Han fick fråntagits
jobbet (av styrelsen).
he got from.take.SUP.PASS the.job by the.board
(10:59)
Han fick fråntas
jobbet (av styrelsen).
he got from.take.INF.PASS the.job by the.board
‘The job had to be taken from him (by the board).’
The conclusion is that the construction with GET-participles involves
control, i.e. a PRO subject. If the ability to license a nominative argu-
410
ment and PRO is tied to T, GET-participles must have a T in their structure, unlike past participles.
It should be noted that GET-participles lack the temporal semantics of
a perfect participle. Hence, when the matrix verb is in the present tense,
a temporal adverbial with past reference is excluded with a participle in
the complement of GET, but not with a present perfect (disregarding
positional past time adverbials); see (10:60).
(10:60) a. * Han får läst
klart
boken
en
he gets read.SUP finished the.book one
b. Han har läst
klart
boken
en
he has read.SUP finished the.book one
‘He has finished reading the book once before.’
gång
time
gång
time
förut.
before
förut.
before
While the present perfect in (10:61a) states that the book will be finished before some time tomorrow, the corresponding example with GET
in (10:61b) states that the event of finishing reading will lie within tomorrow.
(10:61) a.
b.
Imorgon har han läst
klart
boken.
tomorrow has he
read.SUP finished the.book
‘He will have finished reading the book.’
Imorgon får han läst
klart
boken.
tomorrow gets he read.SUP finished the.book
‘He will finish reading the book tomorrow.’
Finally, a counterfactual with GET has a present tense and not a past
tense reading; see (10:62). For a past counterfactual, GET has to be embedded under temporal HAVE, as in (10:63).
(10:62) a.
Om han fick läst
klart
boken
idag,
skulle
if
he got read.SUP finished the.book today would
jag ta
den.
I
take it
‘If he managed to finish reading the book today, I would take it.’
b. * Om han fick läst
klart
boken
igår,
skulle
if
he got read.SUP finished the.book yesterday would
jag ha tagit
den.
I
have taken it
(10:63)
Om han hade fått
läst
klart
boken
igår,
if
he had got.SUP read.SUP finished the.book yesterday
skulle jag ha tagit
den.
would I
have taken it
‘If he had managed to finish reading the book yesterday, I would have
taken it.’
411
We can therefore assume that GET-participles have an unvalued T in
their structure (cf. the excursion on tenseless infinitivals in chapter 3,
section 3.6.1). In this respect, they are similar to tenseless infinitives like
(10:64), which has the control verb glömma ‘forget’ in the matrix
clause. In other words, although PRO presumably requires the presence
of T in the non-finite clause, this T need not be valued.
(10:64) a.
Jag glömde att skriva brevet.
I
forgot to
write the.letter
‘I forgot to write the letter.’
b. * Jag glömmer att skriva/ha skrivit
brevet
I
forget
to
write/have written the.letter
(cf. Wiklund 2007:55)
igår.
yesterday
This means that participles with a T in their structure can have supine
morphology in Swedish, although the supine form is only obligatory
when the participle has a past tense value.
The constructions with geta/gita and the Swedish and Norwegian
GET-participles complicate an account of participle morphology, but it
can also have implications for our understanding of the historical development of the perfect and the interpretation of the historical data.
Specifically, the possibility of active participles of transitive and unergative verbs outside the perfect opens for different analyses of examples
with HAVE + active participle in the historical records. These are addressed in the section 10.3.5. First, I briefly consider the restriction on
the morphological passive in the perfect tense.
10.3.3. A note on the morphological passive
Infinitives in the complement of control verbs typically do not passivize,
whereas raising infinitives do; cf. the example in (10:65a) with the
control verb besluta ‘decide’ and the example in (10.65b) with the
raising verb kunna ‘be able to’. In the previous section, I took examples
of passivized participles in the complement of gita as evidence for a
raising analysis of the construction with gita + participle in Old Swedish.
(10:65) a. * Brevet
beslutade skrivas.
the.letter decided
write.INF.PASS
b. Brevet
kunde skrivas.
the.letter could write.INF.PASS
‘The letter could be written.’
412
Consequently, participles in the complement of GET do not passivize,
as noted above, although GET can take active participles (with supine
morphology); cf. the perfect in (10:66a) and the construction with GET
in (10:66b).
(10:66) a.
Han fick äntligen skrivit boken.
he got finally written the.book
‘He finally got the book written.’
b. * Boken
fick äntligen skrivits.
the.book got finally write.SUP.PASS
If a raising structure and an active participle with an external argument
is all that is needed for morphological passives to be possible, we expect
participles in the complement of HAVE to allow the s-passive as soon
as HAVE has been reanalysed as a raising verb, i.e. already in the oldest
Scandinavian records (given that Old Scandinavian had an s-passive).
We have seen that the morphological passive is not incompatible with
participial morphology; there are a few examples of participles in the
complement of gita ‘be able to’ with passive morphology in Old Swedish (see (10:48) above).
The first known examples of the s-passive of participles in the complement of HAVE are considerably younger, from the 16th and 17th
century (cf. Holm 1952); two early examples are given in (10:67). Examples are rare in the texts investigated here, and 18th and 19th century
grammarians disapprove of the passive of the supine (cf. Platzack 1989).
(10:67) a.
b.
thet andra myntet haffuer kallas
köpgilt
the other the.coin has
called.PASS purchase.valid
‘the other coin has been called valid currency’
(Petri *1493:38)
när
waran
har fördts
in, så ha namne
when the.product has brought.PASS in
so has the.name
kom[m]it in mä.
come
in too
‘when the product has been brought in, the name has come too’
(Columbus II *1642:7)
Moreover, whereas the supine can take passive morphology in PresentDay Swedish, the corresponding perfect participles in the other Mainland Scandinavian languages cannot; cf. Swedish in (10:68) with Norwegian in (10:69).253
253
Other s-forms (e.g. reflexive or middle forms) are sometimes compatible with
perfect participial morphology also in the other Scandinavian languages. Consider
413
Morötterna har hackats
i småbitar
(av kocken).
the.carrots have chopp.SUP.PASS in small.pieces by the.chef
‘The carrots have been chopped into small pieces (by the chef).’
(10:68)
* Gulrøttene har hakkets
i små
the.carrots have chopp.PTC.PASS in small
(10:69)
biter.
pieces
I suggested above that the difference between participles in the complement of gita, which allowed the s-passive in Old Swedish, and perfect participles, which did not, lies in the tense value. We can therefore
assume that the s-passive is temporally or aspectually restricted in older
Swedish, as well as in Norwegian and Danish, but not in Modern Swedish.
The morphological passive is dependent on tense and aspect also outside of the perfect. In Norwegian and Danish, s-passives typically have a
generic reading, whereas periphrastic passives are used to refer to specific events; cf. the examples in (10:70) (from Faarlund et al. 1997:514;
cf. Engdahl 2006, and see Heltoft & Falster Jakobsen 1996 for Danish).
(10:70) a.
b.
Oppgavene
leveres
hver
the.assignments hand.in.PRES.PASS every
‘The assignments are handed in every week.’
Oppgaven
ble
levert
for
the.assignment became hand.in.PTC too
‘The assignment was handed in too late.’
(Faarlund et al. 1997:514)
uke.
week
seint.
late
In Swedish, there is no such restriction; the morphological passive is the
unmarked option in both (10:70a) and (10:70b). In a study of Mainland
Scandinavian passives in newspaper columns, Laanemets (2004) observes that 91 % of all passives are morphological in Swedish. The
corresponding numbers for Norwegian and Danish is 53 % and 55 %
respectively.
the contrast between the Norwegian examples in (i) and (ii); the passive in (i) is
degraded, while examples with a reciprocal reading as in (ii) are attested.
(i)
(ii)
??
De
to
lagene har møttes
av elleville fans hver
the
two teams have met.PASS by wild
fans every
Intended: ‘The two teams have been met by wild fans every time.’
(cf. Faarlund et al. 1997:514)
De
to
lagene har møttes fire ganger før
the
two teams have met.S four times before
‘The two teams have met each other four times before.’
(Google)
gang.
time
414
According to Kirri (1975), the morphological passive is overall more
common than the periphrastic passives also in 16th and 17th century Swedish. In the preterite, it is, however, the other way around: BECOMEpassives are more common than s-passives (Kirri 1975:116). In Danish,
not all verbs have s-passives in the preterite; most strong verbs do not.
Hence, for the verb synge ‘sing’ there is no form *sanges ‘was sung’
(see Laanemets 2004 and references cited there). The same is true in
Norwegian; Åfarli (1992) judges examples like (10:71) as degraded (cf.
Faarlund et al. 1997:513).
(10:71)
??
Jon advartes
i går.
John warn.PAST.PASS yesterday.
‘John was warned yesterday.’
(Åfarli 1992:15)
In Laanemets’ (2004) material, there are no examples of past tense spassives in Present-Day Norwegian, and only few examples in Danish.254 Neither the Norwegian nor the Danish corpora have examples of
morphological passives in the perfect tense. According to Faarlund et al.
(1997), the s-passive is, however, not always completely ungrammatical
in the perfect tense in Norwegian; see (10:72).
(10:72)
?
Fangene
har ført(e)s
ut
av rommet.
the.prisoners have take.PTC.PASS out of
the room
‘The prisoners have been taken out of the room.’
(Faarlund et al. 1997:513)
Hence, the s-passive is largely restricted to infinitive or present tense
forms in Norwegian Bokmål and Danish. In Nynorsk, the morphological
passive is almost exclusively used with infinitives in the complement of
modals (Faarlund et al. 1997:513); see (10:73). The constructions with
gita + participle correspond to modal + infinitive in the present-day languages; this is the context where we find morphological passives (with
-st) in Nynorsk.
(10:73) a.
254
Dette huset
kan seljast.
this
the.house can sell.INF.PASS
‘This house can be sold.’
(NYNORSK)
In Danish, 14/93 (15 %) of the past tense passives are s-passives; in Swedish,
the corresponding number is 82/87 (94 %) (Laanemets 2004:87f.; cf. Engdahl
2006:29).
415
b.
og planane
for kongressenteret
måtte omarbeidast.
and the.plans for the.congress.centre must rework.INF.PASS
‘and the plans for the congress centre must be redone’
(NYNORSK)
Given the restrictions on morphological passives in the present-day languages (relating to tense, aspect, and perhaps mood), and the passivized
participles in the complement of gita in Old Swedish, it seems highly
likely that the restriction on s-passives in the perfect tense in older
Swedish and Norwegian and Danish depends on constraints on the spassive, and not on differences in the properties of the perfect participle.
The first occurrences of the s-passive in the perfect tense are therefore
due to changes in the properties of the passive suffix, and not in the
participle. In other words, the possibility of morphological passives in
the perfect tense does not force us to assume that the Swedish supine is
structurally different from Norwegian and Danish perfect participles.
10.3.4. Possible implications for the development of the perfect
Thus far, I have assumed that the constructions with HAVE + participle
have either of the structures in (10:74), disregarding the distinction between the different past participles. Recall that lexical HAVE has a
possessive preposition (Pposs) in its structure, whereas the raising verb
HAVE involves a temporal preposition (PT). For simplicity, I disregard
the temporal arguments of Asp, T and PT in the structures. Participles of
intransitive and stative verbs do not occur in the structure in (10:74a).
(10:74) a.
b.
Possessive HAVE + passive past participle:
DPi Cop [PP DPi Pposs [AspP DPj Asp [VoiceP]]]
Temporal HAVE + perfect participle:
DPi Cop [PP PT [TP DPi T [AspP]]]
In the discussion of the historical data, I have implicitly assumed that
the temporal auxiliary and the perfect participle develop together, and
that the one does not appear without the other. Given the constructions
with gita/geta and GET, there are at least two more possibilities. First,
we could assume that possessive HAVE took a GET-participle or a
perfect participle as complement at some point in time; the structure is
given in (10:75).
(10:75)
Possessive HAVE + active participle:
Cop [PP DP Pposs [TP PRO T [AspP]]]
416
Given the cross-linguistic data, stative participles never appear to have a
T in their structure; neither GET-participles nor perfect participles are
stative. Since it is implausible that the perfect participle has developed
out of an eventive participle (see above), we can assume that if the
structure in (10:75) is available, it involves a perfect participle. I have
suggested that the difference between the GET-participle and the perfect
participle is the value of T: the GET-participle has an unvalued T
whereas the perfect participle has a past tense T.
It is however not clear what the interpretation of (10:75) would be. As
it stands, it expresses that the subject possesses an (assertion time relating to an) eventuality that lies in the past of the time of having. A
possessive state otherwise requires (spatio)temporal coincidence between the Possessor and the Possessum. In other words, it is not possible
to possess something at present that existed only in the past, or which
does not exist yet. In chapter 9, I suggested that the possessive semantics of HAVE (Pposs) therefore requires that the participial assertion time
coincides with the time of having; the perfect-like construction with
HAVE is in this way temporally-aspectually more restricted than are
stative passives with BE. At the very least, then, we should not posit the
structure in (10:75) without having substantial evidence for it. Since
there is nothing that suggests that it has ever been available, I will disregard it in the following.
Secondly, there could, hypothetically, be a structure with a raising
verb HAVE with a tenseless past participial complement, as in the structure in (10:76). For the development of the perfect, this would mean that
temporal HAVE emerges before the perfect participle does.
(10:76)
Raising HAVE + past participle:
Cop [PP PT [AspP]]
Taking the participle in the complement of HAVE to be an (active) resultant state participle (which is the stative participle most similar to the
perfect participle), this construction would be restricted to verbs that can
have bounded or resultative aspect, but not to transitives. In other words,
a language with the structure in (10:76) would allow active participles of
eventive verbs in the complement of HAVE, but would generally disallow stative verbs with HAVE. Old English is a possible candidate for
such a language. Carey (1994, 1995) notes a few examples of participles
of intransitive eventive verbs in the complement of HAVE in the oldest
sources, but no examples of intransitive stative verbs (see Table 4.6
above). However, the number of examples of eventive intransitive verbs
is also small, and hardly allows for any conclusions, particularly since
417
the distinction between stative and eventive verbs can be difficult to
make, and since not all transitive structures need have an explicit object.
If the structure in (10:76) were ever possible, we would have to explain
the changed selectional properties of PT. Moreover, in the present-day
languages, there is no evidence for active stative participles of transitive
or unergative verbs.
A simpler assumption is that the participial stativizer (although for
unclear reasons) always combines with a passive/unaccusative verb
phrase, as in the present-day languages. This means that the development of the perfect involves a reanalysis of the perfect-like construction
with lexical HAVE + a resultant state participle as a perfect, without any
intermediate stage; see (10:77). As in many other cases of grammaticalization, the change does not mean that the original structure becomes unavailable.
(10:77) Two stages in the development of the perfect:
I
Possessive HAVE + passive past participle:
DPi Cop [PP DPi Pposs [AspP DPj Asp [VoiceP]]]
II Temporal HAVE + perfect participle:
DPi Cop [PP PT [TP DPi T [AspP]]]
It thus seems highly plausible that active participles of unergative verbs
in the complement of HAVE are unambiguous perfects in the Old Germanic sources, in line with what was established in chapter 4 above.
10.3.5. Summary
In this section, I have briefly considered the question of past participles
and case, and active participles in the complement of geta/gita in Icelandic and Old Swedish, and GET in Present-Day Swedish. I have
suggested that although past participles are necessarily either passive
(i.e. have an implicit argument) or unaccusative in contexts where all
arguments must be licensed within the participial clause, they are not inherently passive/unaccusative.
Active participles in the complement of geta/gita and GET (so-called
GET-participles) complicate an account of participle morphology somewhat. They also raise questions regarding the historical development of
the perfect. However, since nothing suggests that perfect participles
appeared before temporal HAVE did or the other way around, I will
continue to assume that stative past participles, unlike eventive participles, are always passive or unaccusative, and that temporal HAVE and
418
the perfect participle were the result of a single reanalysis of a perfectlike construction. In this way, I do not posit any differences between the
Old Germanic languages and the present-day languages that there is no
evidence for. I leave the question of why the stativizer only seem to
occur in tenseless and passive/unaccusative structures aside and instead
turn to the historical development of the supine form, and, in section
10.5, the perfect tense.
10.4. Supine morphology
As we saw in chapter 2 above, Swedish strong verbs (4th conjugation)
have a supine form which is morphologically distinct from the past
participle. This is not the case in the other Scandinavian standard languages; cf. Swedish in (10:78) and Norwegian in (10:79).
(10:78) a.
b.
(10:79) a.
b.
Det
blev
aldrig skrivet
there became never write.PTC.N.SG
‘There was never any letter written.’
Hon har skrivit
ett brev.
she has write.SUP a
letter
‘She has written a letter.’
något
any
brev.
letter
Brevet
ble
skrevet.
the.letter became write.PTC.N.SG
‘The letter was written.’
Hun har skrevet
brevet.
she has write.PTC.N.SG the.letter
Most varieties of Present-Day Swedish make the distinction between the
supine and the neuter singular past participial form for strong verbs; the
former has the suffix -it, the latter -et or -en.
As noted, the final -t can be dropped in the supine of strong verbs and
weak verbs with stems ending with an unstressed -a (1st conjugation;
e.g. måla ‘paint’ and tala ‘speak’); consider again examples like
(10:80). Omission of -t is generally not possible with past participial
forms, or when the supine takes the morphological passive; cf. (10:81).
(10:80) a.
b.
Hon har målat/måla huset.
she has painted
the.house
‘She has painted the house.’
Jag har skrivit/skrivi en bok.
I
have written
a
book
419
(10:81) a.
b.
c.
Huset
blev
målat/*måla.
the.house became painted
‘The house was painted.’
Det blev
aldrig skrivet/*skrive någon
there became never write.PTC.N.SG any
‘There was never any book written.’
Det
har skrivits/*skrivis en bok.
there has write.SUP.PASS a
book
‘There has been a book written.’
bok.
book
In certain varieties of Swedish, the supine form with -it or -i can occur
also with weak verbs with stems ending in a consonant (2nd conjugation
verbs; e.g. köp- ‘buy’); consider the examples in (10:82), where the
participial forms are byggi ‘built’, byti ‘switched’ and glömmi ‘forgotten’ for standard byggt, bytt and glömt (see further Nordberg 1985b
and Sundgren 2002, and references cited there).
(10:82) a.
b.
c.
sen har man väl
byggi på et
then have one surely built
on it
‘then one has surely built on it’
fast
jag har byti
lägenheter
although I
have switched apartments
‘although I have switched apartments’
nu har man glömmi
bort et
now has one forgotten away it
‘now, one has forgotten about it’
(All three examples were uttered in 1996 by a man from Eskilstuna,
*1920; from Sundgren 2002:198)
Although I judge forms like glömmi (or glömmit) for glömt ‘forgotten’
as substandard, they are not completely foreign to my (Central Swedish)
variety of Swedish. In some cases, the ending -it can be seen as a remnant of an older strong inflection, but given that it is possible with most
verbs in the 2nd conjugation (with some exceptions; see Sundgren 2002),
it is rather a question of generalization of the supine form. In past participles, forms with -i/-it or even -et are totally impossible for these verbs;
cf. the examples (10:83).
(10:83) a.
b.
Huset
är byggt/*byggit/*byggi/*bygget.
the.house is built
‘The house has been built.’
Det är glömt/*glömmit/*glömmi/*glömmet
it
is forgotten
‘It has been forgotten.’
420
According to SAG (1999, 2:551), the final -t of the supine can be
dropped in most varieties of Swedish. The geographical area where -t is
omitted from the supine is larger than the area where -t is omitted from
definite neuter singular nouns as in huse for huset ‘the house’ (see
Sundgren 2002 and references cited there). Forms without -t on nouns
are assumed to occur in certain varieties of Old Swedish (but not in
Götamål; see e.g. Wessén 1955:84, Pamp 1971:107). The possibility of
-t-drop from participial forms is noted in the 17th century grammars by
Aurivillius (1684) and Tiällman (1696) (cf. Platzack 1989:316). Examples from the 17th century are given in (10:84), which have the forms
frachta for frachtat ‘hired’, and tagi for tagit ‘taken’.
(10:84) a.
b.
såm iagh hadhe långosädan frachta
att föra
migh
that I
had
long.ago
hire.SUP to
bring me
öffwer till Swerighe
over
to
Sweden
‘that I had hired long ago to bring me over to Sweden’
(Rosenhane *1611:106)
at
ingen har
wist
hvart vi
hafwa tagi
vägen
that no.one have known where we have
take.SUP way
‘that no one would have known, where we had gone’
(Horn *1629:25)
By the end of the 18th century, supine forms without -t appear to have
been typical for the spoken language in and around Stockholm; Ristell’s
play Några mil från Stockholm (1787), which attempts to mimic the
spoken language, as a rule has supine forms without -t, as noted in the
comment to the edition. Omission of -t was not restricted to perfect
participles in older Swedish, as it is in the Central Swedish varieties of
Present-Day Swedish, and also the past participial endings -d and -de
are sometimes dropped; cf. (10:85) with fägna for fägnad ‘pleased’ and
förblekna for förbleknad ‘pale’.
(10:85) a.
b.
Och om andra afton kom han didh […] och blef
and on second eve came he there
and became
fägna
af
hene
pleased
by her
‘And on the second eve he came there and was pleased by her’
(Horn *1629:75)
de kinder såm förblekna är
åg wåta
the cheeks that pale.PTC are and wet
‘The cheeks that are pale and wet’
(Börk I *c. 1660:304)
421
The systematic difference between supine forms with -it and past
participles with -et/-en was, on the other hand, not fully established in
the 17th century. For an overview of the alternation, I have investigated
the alternation between -i- and -e- in the primary corpus of 16th–18th
century texts that were included in the study of the loss of BE in chapter
7. In these texts, there is an alternation between -i- and -e- both in past
participles and in perfects; consider the past participles öffvergångidt
‘gone over’ and åt gånget ‘used up’ in (10:86), and the perfect participles frusi ‘frozen’ and fruset ‘frozen’ in (10:87).
(10:86) a.
b.
(10:87) a.
b.
huru som Åbo stadh och slott
var åther
öffvergångidt
how that Åbo town and castle was again over.gone
till the vedervertige finnar
to
the atrocious
Fins
‘how the town of Åbo had again gone over to the atrocious Fins’
(Gyllenhielm *1574:266)
til thes alt var åt
gånget
to that all was off gone
‘until all had been used up’
(Bureus I *1568:215)
vi
sku
ha frusi
ihjäl
we would have frozen to.death
‘we would have frozen to death’
(Horn *1629:99)
efter iahan är litet siuk och har fruset
since John
is little sick and has frozen
‘Since John is a bit sick and has been freezing.’
(Horn *1629:108)
The vowels alternate also in common gender forms ending in -n (i.e.
-in/-en); cf. (10:88) with farin/faren ‘gone’. In my material, the dominating vowel is -i-; this is expected since the texts have a Central Swedish
origin (cf. e.g. Kock 1921:120f.). In Present-Day Swedish, the ending is
-et/-en in past participles in the complement of BE, and -it in perfect
participles (or supine forms) in the complement of HAVE.
(10:88) a.
b.
i medler tidh war H: Mtt,
farin i Ryssmarken
in mean time was His Majesty gone in Ryssmarken
‘in the mean time had His Majesty gone to Ryssmarken’
(Rosenhane *1611:195)
Wist
lära de mena iag är
til helfwitis faren
certainly will they believe I
am to hell
gone
‘they will certainly believe that I have gone to hell’
(Columbus I *1642:52)
422
The data are summarized in Table 10.2. Period I includes the texts by
Bureus (*1568), Gyllenhielm (*1574) and Rosenhane (*1611); Period II
comprises the texts by Horn (*1629) and Columbus (*1642); Period III
includes the plays by Börk (*c. 1660) and Gyllenborg (*1679) and
Philomela (cf. section 7.3 above). The data include only active participles of unaccusative verbs ending in -it/-i (e.g. kommit/kommi) or -et/-e
(kommet/komme) in perfect-type constructions with HAVE or BE.
Counterfactuals are included, as are examples where the auxiliary
HAVE is omitted.
TABLE 10.2.
Text
Period I
Period II
Period III
ALL
The alternation -it/-et in older Swedish.
BE + Ptc
# -et
3/18
2/14
0/3
5/25
BE + Ptc
% -et
17 %
(14 %)
(0 %)
20 %
HAVE +
Ptc # -et
0/23
1/45
0/45
1/113
HAVE +
Ptc % -et
0%
2%
0%
0.9 %
TOTAL
# -et
3/41
3/59
0/48
6/148
TOTAL
% -et
7%
5%
0%
4%
Although the cases of -et/-e are few, and the overall difference between
past participles and perfect participles is small, we can note the beginning of a split; with a single exception, participles in the complement
of HAVE have the ending -i/-it. The frequency of -e- is considerably
higher (20 %) with past participles in the complement of BE. In this
material, no shift in the alternation can be noted.
With inflected (common gender) past participles, -en, and not -in, is
the preferred ending; cf. Table 10.3 below. Here, -e- is considerably
more common than in the neuter singular contexts, and, with time, increasingly so. In Period III, the forms -it and -en are categorical; there
are no examples of past or perfect participles with -et in this period, and
no past participles with -in.
TABLE 10.3.
Text
Period I
Period II
Period III
ALL
The alternation -in/-en in older Swedish.
BE + Ptc # -en
35/69
24/41
24/24
83/134
BE + Ptc % -en
51 %
59 %
100 %
62 %
The first appearance of the possibility to omit -t and the grammatically
based distinction between the supine with -it and the participle with -et
423
need not correspond to a change in the structure and feature set-up of the
perfect participle; I have argued that Swedish has perfect participles that
are structurally distinct from past participles already in the early Old
Swedish period. A possibility which lies closer at hand is that the
alternation -i-/-e- is reinterpreted as depending on grammatical function
(rather than on phonological or phonetic factors) when the syllabic
system changes and short syllables are lost. This change begins in the
Old Swedish period but is not completed until much later (see e.g.
Widmark 1998:27). According to Palmér (1910) and Kock (1910, 1921:
107), the origin of the alternation -i-/-e- in participles is vowel balance,
i.e. the quantity of the root syllable: -i- occurs after short syllables (e.g.
tagit ‘taken’), -e- after long syllables (e.g. fallet ‘fallen’). In a study of
the variation -i-/-e- in a number of older Swedish texts from 1541–1847,
Platzack (1981) observes that the quantity of the root syllable is the
main determinant for the alternation in the translation of the Bible from
1541.
Platzack includes common gender forms with -in or -en in his study
as well. In some texts (particularly from the 17th century), this is the
most important factor for the alternation -i-/-e- (1981:133). As noted
above, the ending -in is completely missing from the most modern texts
in my material. The fact that the endings with -i- is restricted in past
participles in this way, but not in perfects (since perfect participles
always have -t), is a possible origin to the analysis of -i-/-e- as reflecting
a grammatical distinction.
It is thus likely that the morphological reanalysis of the alternation
-i-/-e- is triggered by shifts in the morpho-phonological system. The
new system for the alternation is grammatically based, and is therefore a
consequence of a syntactic change that took place considerably earlier.
The development of a morphological distinction requires morphophonological variation which can be reinterpreted as relating to the
underlying distinction. The conditions for the innovation to spread in the
linguistic community must also be met. We know that the beginning of a
modern Swedish Standard develops during the 18th century. Palmér
(1919:35) notes that the modern system with supine forms with -it and
past participles with -et is almost fully established in Konung Karl XII:s
historia (1740) by Jöran Nordberg (born in Stockholm 1677). Platzack
(1981) observes that the grammar by Sahlstedt (1769) argues for a
grammatically based distinction -it/-et.
I conclude that the Swedish supine form is nothing but a morphologically marked perfect participle. The fact that the Norwegian and
Danish standards lack the morphological distinction, although they
424
make the same syntactic-semantic difference between perfect participles
and past participles, is not unexpected; Swedish has more generally preserved vowel distinctions in endings. In fact, there are Norwegian
dialects which make a morphological distinction between perfect participles and past participles; cf. the examples with the non-agreeing
passive past participle skoden ‘shot’ in (10:89) to (10:90) which has the
perfect participle skode ‘shot’ (from Øystein Vangsnes and Terje Lohndahl p.c.; judgements from Terje Lohndahl from Lyngdal in the south of
Norway). Similar data from Northern Norwegian have been reported by
Peter Svenonius.
(10:89) a.
b.
c.
(10:90)
Elgen
blei
skoden/*skode.
the.elk.M.SG became shoot.PTC.M.SG/shoot.SUP
‘The elk was shot.’
Det
dyre
skulle vore skoden/*skode.
that.N.SG the.animal.N.SG should been shoot.PTC.M.SG/shoot.SUP
‘That animal should [have] been shot.’
Dei
dyran
sko
vore skoden/*skode.
that.PL the.animals.PL should been shoot.PTC.M.SG/shoot.SUP
‘Those animals should [have] been shot.’
Æ(g) he *skoden/skode
elgen.
I
have shoot.PTC.M.SG/shoot.SUP the.elk.M.SG
‘I have shot the elk.’
Given the structural difference between perfect participles and past
participles, what needs to be explained is not that there is a morphological distinction in Swedish and in some Norwegian dialects, but the
fact that participles despite their varying structures so often are homonymous. That perfect participles are not morphologically marked in languages like Danish and English can to some extent be accounted for by
the fact that the perfect was established (partly) in literary time. However, the problem still remains why eventive past participles and the
different kinds of stative past participles generally are homonymous. I
return to this in chapter 11.
10.5. The development of the perfect
In section 10.3, I dismissed the possibility that the temporal auxiliary
and the perfect participle arose at different times. Instead, I argued that
both the auxiliary and the perfect participle are the result of a reanalysis
of the construction with possessive HAVE + resultant state participle,
425
which is still (marginally) possible in Present-Day Swedish. As we have
seen, perfects and resultant state constructions can have similar interpretations, although they do not have identical properties. Taking agreement to distinguish non-perfects from perfects, there seems to have been
an increase in the use of resultant state participles with HAVE at some
point in Old Germanic, as can be observed in the Edda and the Grágás.
I have noted a similar extended use of BE + participle in Old Swedish
and the construction with vera búinn að + infinitive in Present-Day
Icelandic. The reanalysis of the resultant state construction as a perfect
is in other words only part of the story; it is tied to changes in the distribution of constructions with a similar or overlapping meaning.
In this section, I reconsider some of the historical and comparative
data and discuss how the development can be understood. I begin by
summarizing the changes in the structure of the participle. In section
10.5.2, I turn to the grammaticalization of the auxiliary.
10.5.1. Changes in the structure of the participle
In this study of the development of the perfect, I have, compared to most
previous work, shifted the focus from the grammaticalization of the
auxiliary HAVE to changes in the structure of the participle. I have not
assumed that there is a single structure for en-participles, simply because they tend to have the same morphological form. Such an assumption would be untenable for Swedish, where no single form corresponds
to the en-participles in languages like English. We have seen that there
is reason to distinguish not only between verbal and adjectival passive
participles and perfect participles, but also between eventive and stative
tenseless past participles, different kinds of stative participles, GETparticiples and perfect participles. Since the perfect participle most likely has developed from a stative participle in a construction where it expresses (implies) anteriority, I have focused on stative participles.
In the comparative Indo-European literature, participles formed with
the cognates to the Germanic suffixes *-þa- (I.E. *-to-) or *-ena-/*-ana(I.E. *-e/o-no-) are treated as deverbal adjectives (see e.g. Szemerényi
1996:323 and Larsson 2006 for an overview). Also in Modern Greek,
participles suffixed with -tos have adjectival inflection and distribution,
and a target state reading (see further Anagnostopoulou 2003a). In
chapter 8, I suggested that Greek -tos-participles have the structure in
(10:91) below. Since they lack procP, they do not denote a transition or
process, and since they lack initP they are incompatible with instruments
426
and agentive by-phrases. I argued that the same is true for Swedish
target state participles.
(10:91)
Target state -tos-participles in Greek:
[VoiceP Voice [resP res]]
However, I also noted that the structure of target state participles can
vary between languages. I proposed that German target state participles
can include procP, as do the Greek -menos-participles that have a target
state reading.
In the Germanic languages, the same suffixes are used to form participles which have an independent aspectual value (bounded or resultative aspect), i.e., resultant state participles. Although resultant state participles are less lexically restricted and ‘more verbal’ (as a consequence
of the presence of AspP), they have adjectival properties. In Swedish
and Icelandic, they are, for instance, inflected like adjectives. In Greek,
resultant state participles are formed with the suffix -menos, but they
still have adjectival inflection.
Taking the Greek -tos-participle to be historically primary to the Germanic participles, we could assume that en-participles have gained more
verbal structure with time, and that the suffixes *-to- and *-e/o-no- in
Germanic has come to be employed to form participles that in Greek
and Sanskrit have different form (e.g. the suffix -menos in Greek).255 If
this is the case, the development begins at an early stage. In Gothic,
some en-participles seem to include initP; see again the example in
(10:92) (repeated from (4:23) above).
(10:92)
daupidai
wesun allai in Iaurdane aƕai fram imma
baptize.PTC.PL.NOM were
all in Jordan river by him
‘all were baptized by him in the Jordan river’
(Mark 1:5)
Tensed participial forms (perfect participles) with the suffixes corresponding to Older Germanic *-þa- or *-ena-/*-ana- are a more recent
development. There is no evidence for a participle with a TP in Gothic
and in the oldest Old High German sources. In the presence of T, participles of transitive and unergative verbs can have an active reading, and
unlike resultant state participles they are not stative. In Germanic, they
are not inflected. The structural changes of the participle can therefore
255
It is standardly assumed that the morphologically more complex verbal systems
in Sanskrit and Greek are historically primary to the Germanic system, and that the
aspectual distinctions have been lost in Germanic.
427
be viewed as involving changes in the amount of verbal structure in the
participle. With more verbal structure, there are fewer lexical restrictions; resultant state participles are less lexically constrained than target
state and progressive state participles, but more constrained than perfect
participles.
The reanalysis of a stative past participle as a perfect participle is
possible if the following three conditions are met. First, the stative participle must express anteriority. Both target state and resultant state
participles do, while progressive state participles and eventive participles do not; cf. the examples in (10:93) and (10:94). In (10:93a), the
target state of the event of turning up the collar holds at present, and the
event (if there ever was one) must lie before the present. In (10:93b), the
time of the event of doing lies within the participial assertion time, and
ends before the right boundary of the assertion time. In (10:94a), on the
other hand, the event of chasing is ongoing, and in (10:94:b), the event
of doing lies (partly) in the future.
(10:93) a.
b.
(10:94) a.
b.
Han har fortfarande kragen
uppslagen.
he has still
the.collar up.turned
‘He still has the collar turned up.’
Nu har jag det äntligen gjort.
now have I
it
finally done
‘Now I finally have it done.’
(target state)
(resultant state)
De har henne jagad genom hela Europa. (progressive state)
they have her
chased through all Europe
‘They have her chased through all of Europe.’
Nu får jag det äntligen gjort.
(eventive)
Now get I
it
finally
done
‘Now I finally get it done.’
Secondly, it must be possible to interpret the implicit argument of the
participle as coreferent with the subject of HAVE. This is possible but
not necessary in perfect-like constructions with HAVE also in PresentDay Swedish; cf. (10:95).
(10:95) a.
Jag kommer att ha artikeln skriven före
torsdag (och
I
come
to have the.paper written before Thursday and
jag klarar det själv).
I
manage it
self
‘I will have the paper written before Thursday (and I will manage to
do it myself.)
428
b.
Jag vill ha artikeln
skriven före
torsdag
(så nu
I
want have the.paper written before Thursday so now
måste du skynda dig).
must
you hurry REFL
‘I want to have the paper written before Thursday (so you must hurry
now).’
Thirdly, reinterpretation is facilitated by ambiguous strings. The change
is therefore tied to neuter singular participles and to contexts where
there is no agentive by-phrase or other adverbial (like still) compatible
with e.g. target state participles but not perfects. Since the Old Germanic
languages had OV-order (and variation between OV- and VO-), word
order does not disambiguate perfects and perfect-like constructions (see
chapter 4, section 4.1.1 above). Note that these are not sufficient conditions for change; ambiguity clearly does not always lead to an innovation that spreads in the speech community.
It is possible that the Germanic development of the tensed participle
(and more generally, the perfect tense) from an aspectual tenseless participle should be tied to a more general shift from aspectual to temporal
morphology.256 In the Old Germanic languages, there are a number of
particles and prefixes which may express aspect or Aktionsart, or a
combination of the two. In the present-day languages, the prefix ge- on
participles in German and Dutch is a remnant of these. In Old Germanic,
it is not restricted to participial forms, but is generally assumed to modify the Aktionsart of the verb, yielding a telic predicate (much like particles in Modern Scandinavian), or to be an aspectual marker (see e.g.
Streitberg 1891, Prokosch 1938:205, Krause 1968:213, Andersson 1972:
86ff.); compare e.g. the prefixed verb galagjan ‘place, put away’ with
lagjan ‘put’, and gasitan ‘sit down, set’ with sitan ‘sit’. In Scandinavian,
a prefix corresponding to Gothic ga- (German ge-) does not occur even
in the oldest sources, and in English it disappears at the end of the 14th
century (see e.g. Traugott 1972, Hiltunen 1983, van Gelderen 2004:
208f. and references cited there). In the oldest Scandinavian sources, the
particles um/umb and of can be assumed to relate to aspect and/or
Aktionsart; consider the example in (10:96) where the reading of sakna
‘miss’ is inchoative or perfective (and see e.g. Dal 1930 and Ljunggren
1932). In Old Swedish, they occur only in the runic inscriptions, and
256
In Present-Day Icelandic, it seems to be the other way around: the periphrastic
progressive and the resultant state construction both appear to be spreading at the
expense of the simple present tense form and the HAVE-perfect (see e.g. Torfadóttir
2008, Friðriksson 2008 and Larsson 2009).
429
also in Old Norse they are characteristic of older texts like the Poetic
Edda.
Reiðr var þá Vingþórr, er
hann vacnaði / oc
angry was then Wingthor when he awoke
and
síns
hamars um sacnaði
POSS.REFL hammer PRT missed
‘Angry was then Wingthor when he awoke and missed his hammer.’
(Edda Þrk. 1)
(10:96)
These particles and prefixes thus appear to come out of use or become
more restricted at approximately the same time as the perfect tense
develops. In the case of the participles, there is, however, no loss of
aspectual marking when the perfect participle emerges. As we have
seen, there are resultant state participles also in the present-day languages.
10.5.2. Grammaticalization of HAVE and BE
Grammaticalization is sometimes viewed in terms of reanalysis from a
structure, where an element is base-generated in a lower (lexical) position and moves to a higher position in the functional sequence, to a
structure where it is base-generated in the higher position (see in particular Roberts & Roussou 2003 and van Gelderen 2004). The development of modals in the history of English can for instance be seen as a
reanalysis of verbs as functional elements which are base-generated in
some head in the T-domain (and not moved there). Among other things,
this kind of analysis captures the fact that English modals have lost their
non-finite forms, that they do not iterate and that they only occur with
bare infinitival complements. This was not the case in Old and Middle
English; consider the differences between older English and PresentDay English illustrated in the examples in (10:97)–(10:99) below (from
Roberts & Roussou 2003:37f., who in turn refer to Visser 1963, Denison
1993:310 and Roberts 1993a:313).
(10:97) a.
but it sufficeth too hem to kunne her Pater
but it suffices
to
them to know their Pater
(15th century; from Roberts & Roussou 2003:38)
b. * It suffices to can Pater Noster. (Present-Day English)
Noster
Noster
430
(10:98) a.
Who this booke shall wylle lerne
who this book
shall wish
learn
‘He who wishes to master this book’
(15th century; from Roberts & Roussou 2003:38)
b. * he who shall will learn this book (Present-Day English)
(10:99) a.
euerych bakere of þe town … shal to þe
every baker of the town
owes to the
town a penny
town a penny
(a. 1400; from Roberts & Roussou 2003:38)
b. * I shall you a penny. (Present-Day English)
clerke
clerk
of þe
of the
Van Gelderen (2004) suggests a similar analysis of the development of
the temporal auxiliary HAVE. She assumes that root modals and the
auxiliary HAVE, as well as the progressive auxiliary BE, are basegenerated in AspP in Present-Day English. However, as I pointed out in
chapter 3 above, there are several reasons to assume that temporal
HAVE is not like the English modals.257 Unlike English modals, temporal HAVE has a non-finite form, and it can be combined with modals
and occur in a position below negation; consider the English example in
(10:100) and the Swedish examples in (10:101).
(10:100)
He should not have done it.
(10:101) a.
han som inte har gjort det ännu
he who not has done it
yet
‘he who has not done it yet’
han som inte kan ha gjort det ännu
he who not can have done it
yet
‘he who could not have done it yet’
b.
The biclausal analysis of the perfect outlined in chapter 3 has the advantage of accounting for these differences between HAVE and English
modals. It also makes it possible to derive the semantics of the perfect
without a perfect phrase, but with a non-finite past tense (which is expected to exist for independent reasons) in combination with the properties of the auxiliary. With Kayne’s (1993) analysis of auxiliary selection
as a starting point, I have assumed both possessive and temporal HAVE
to involve the copula + a preposition, at least in languages like English
and Swedish.
257
I leave open the analysis of the (development of the) so-called inferential
perfect (see chapter 3, section 3.6.2 above).
431
In two respects, the development of temporal HAVE resembles that
of modals. First, the complement of both modals and HAVE involves
more structure than the complement of the main verbs. For English
modals, this can be captured by the assumption that modals are basegenerated higher than lexical verbs. For HAVE, on the other hand, I take
it to relate to the structure of the participle, and not the position of
HAVE; the participial complement of temporal HAVE is TP, the participial complement of possessive HAVE is AspP or VoiceP. Secondly,
unlike ordinary main verbs, neither modals nor temporal HAVE assigns
theta roles to DP arguments. As noted in chapter 9, temporal HAVE is a
raising verb, whereas possessive HAVE is not. I tied this to a difference
in the properties of the prepositional element of HAVE: possessive
HAVE involves a possessive preposition Pposs, which assigns a theta role
to the subject of HAVE, while temporal HAVE involves a temporal preposition PT which does not introduce a DP argument but takes temporal
arguments.
The development of the perfect has traditionally been viewed as a
gradual emptying of the lexical content of the verb HAVE. Semantic
bleaching tends to be seen as a central aspect of grammaticalization
more generally (see e.g. Hopper & Traugott 1993 for discussion). However, on the basis of the variety of constructions with possessive HAVE,
and the different interpretations that are available, I have assumed that
possessive HAVE has little lexical content to begin with. Specifically, I
have suggested that the change from Pposs to PT involves not only a
change in theta assignment, but also a change from a possessive relation
between the arguments to a relationship of inclusion. Possessive HAVE
can express inclusion (inalienable possession), but it clearly need not;
cf. (10:102a) and (10:102b).
(10:102) a.
b.
Boken
har röd pärm.
the.book has red cover
‘The book has a read cover.’
Jag har den boken
hemma.
I
have that the.book at.home
‘I have that book at home.’
On the other hand, the temporal-aspectual interpretation is more restricted in constructions with possessive HAVE + a resultant state participle than in perfects. As argued in chapter 9, the participial assertion
time necessarily coincides with the event time of HAVE in constructions with possessive HAVE + a resultant state participle. As a con-
432
sequence, past time adverbials are excluded in constructions with
possessive HAVE in the present tense; see (10:103).
(10:103) a.
b.
Jag har (*nyligen) det gjort.
I
have recently
it
done
‘I have it (*recently) done.’
Jag har det gjort (*igår).
I
have it
done yesterday
’I have it done (*yesterday).’
Since HAVE is stative and combines with unbounded aspect, the matrix
assertion time lies within the event time of HAVE. Consequently, the
participial assertion time includes the matrix assertion time (see chapter
9, section 9.3.2 above). Possessive HAVE does, however, not establish a
direct relationship between the two assertion times.
In perfects, the anteriority conveyed by the resultant state construction has been reanalysed as a non-finite past tense. The participial assertion time is, however, not past in relation to the speech time but to some
point within the time of having. Moreover, the indirect relation of
inclusion between the participial assertion times has been reinterpreted
as a direct relation established by HAVE (PT): the temporal preposition
places the matrix assertion time in the participial assertion time. Adverbials like nyligen ‘recently’ are possible when HAVE is in the present tense, while positional past time adverbials like igår ‘yesterday’ are
not; see (10:104).
(10:104) a.
Jag har nyligen gjort det.
I
have recently done it.
‘I have done it recently.’
b. * Jag har gjort det igår.
I
have done it
yesterday
In languages like German, where positional past time adverbials are
compatible with the present perfect, the grammaticalization of HAVE
has gone one step further. According to Grønvik (1986:55), this change
takes place in the 16th century. On the present account, one possibility is
that the semantics of PT is weakened and allows for non-overlap between
the two assertion times, i.e. readings where the participial assertion time
precedes the matrix assertion time completely. Another possibility,
which is worth exploring, is that PT has been lost in German. This means
that the auxiliary HAVE is not distinguished from BE by involving a
prepositional element. Instead, temporal HAVE and BE can be seen as
inflectional variants of the copula. In Italian dialects, the realization can
433
depend (also) on the particular person and/or tense features of the participle.
As noted, the standard assumption is that languages like Swedish and
English have had a perfect tense with BE, and that this was lost fairly recently. A more careful investigation of the data suggests that this assumption should not be maintained and that there are further distinctions
among the perfect-type constructions than have generally been assumed
in the historical literature. Although a perfect-like construction with BE
+ a past participle of an unaccusative verb was preferred to HAVE-perfects in the contexts where there was a choice between the two, HAVEperfects with unaccusative verbs are attested in Swedish and English as
soon as there is clear evidence for a perfect with HAVE, and BE never
develops into a temporal auxiliary. Since the focus of the present study
is on Swedish, I have not investigated the full development of BE-perfects. However, in chapter 5 (section 5.6) above, I noted that the Danish
perfect with BE seems to be a later development than the HAVE-perfect. According to Johannisson (1945), HAVE was more common with
unaccusative verbs in Older Danish than in the present-day language,
and particularly common in counterfactual examples. Also in the history
of German, there was a tendency to use HAVE rather than BE in past
counterfactuals with unaccusative verbs, although BE was not completely ungrammatical in past counterfactuals, as it was in Swedish and
English.
Although split auxiliary languages often allow positional past time
adverbials, the development of BE-perfects is not necessarily concomitant with a loss of PT. In the Danish varieties which disallow
positional past time adverbials in the present perfect, the development of
BE-perfects thus involved a change in the realization of the copula in
contexts with PT + a perfect participle and not a loss of PT. As pointed
out in chapter 9, it is, on the other hand, possible that the loss of PT is
restricted to split auxiliary languages, or languages where the only
perfect auxiliary is BE.
As we could observe in chapter 4, perfect-like constructions do not
always involve HAVE or BE. In the oldest Germanic (particularly German) sources, they can also involve eigan ‘own’ + participle. In the present investigation of the Old Germanic sources, there are no clear-cut
examples that force us to assume that eigan was ever a temporal auxiliary. However, as noted, there is one example with eiga + a participle of
an intransitive verb in the investigation of the texts by Notker carried
out by Dieninghoff (1904); it is repeated in (10:105) (from (4:33)
above). With HAVE, there are more than 20 examples.
434
(10:105)
Vuir eîgen gesúndot sáment únseren fórderon
we own
sinned
with
our
forefathers
‘We have sinned with our forefathers’
(Notker *c. 950:II 451; from Dieninghoff 1904:55)
As far as I can tell, examples like that in (10:105) are exceptional and do
not occur more generally. Given that the construction with eiga disappears at the time when the HAVE-perfect develops, it therefore seems
likely that eiga was never fully established as a temporal auxiliary.
10.5.3. On the development of a new tense
As outlined in the previous sections, the emergence of the perfect can be
understood as a reanalysis of the structure in (10:106a) as the structure
in (10:106b) (the temporal arguments are not included). With standard
assumptions, the reanalysis takes place when a child acquires a different
grammar than his or her parents (see e.g. Lightfoot 1999).
(10:106) a.
b.
… DPi Cop [PP DPi Pposs [AspP DPj Asp [VoiceP]]]
… DPi Cop [PP PT [TP DPi T [AspP]]]
When we consider the historical records, we can, however, observe finer
differences between texts (or varieties) than suggested by the simple
split between systems that have a perfect tense and systems that do not. I
have observed an extended use of the perfect-like construction with
HAVE in some of the Old Scandinavian texts, just like I noted an extended use of BE in older Swedish, and I take this to be a prerequisite
for the reanalysis. We also know that changes generally proceed along
an S-shaped trajectory (cf. chapter 4, section 4.3.3).
In chapter 9, I noted that the perfect-like construction with HAVE +
past participle is marked in Present-Day Swedish, and that it occurs only
rarely in the corpora of written Swedish. The situation in the oldest Germanic sources is similar. In the Gothic Bible there are only a couple of
examples with HAVE + participle, and the number of examples is small
also in the earliest Old High German sources. Furthermore, the interpretation of the examples appears to be similar; like many of the present-day examples, the example in (10:107), which is one of the oldest
Old High German examples of HAVE + participle, expresses that something has been achieved.
435
pi
daz er in uuerolti kiuuerkot hapeta
for that he in world achieved had
‘for that which he had achieved in the world’
(Muspilli c. 830:36; from Grønvik 1986:35f.)
(10:107)
In a discussion of Old English, Brinton (1988:89) points out that examples with possessive HAVE + past participle are rare, and that this is
a problem for the traditional account which takes these examples to be
the origin of the perfect (cf. van Gelderen 2004:170); we clearly do not
expect a construction with a very limited distribution to be reanalysed as
a tense.
When we consider the oldest Scandinavian sources, the picture is
somewhat different: agreeing participles in the complement of HAVE
are more frequent, and have a distribution more similar to perfects. Consider again the Eddic examples in (10:19), repeated in (10:108) below.
As we have seen, the corresponding examples with resultant state participles are grammatical in Present-Day Swedish, but they are marked and
a perfect would (almost always) be preferred.
(10:108) a.
b.
nú hefi ec dverga / […]
rétt
um talða
now have I dwarf.M.PL.ACC rightly PRT mention.PTC.M.PL.ACC
‘Now, I have mentioned the dwarfs rightly.’
(Edda Vsp. 12)
Hefir þú kannaða
koni
óneisa?
have
you muster.PTC.M.PL.ACC man.M.PL.ACC valiant
‘Have you mustered the valiant men?’
(Edda HH I 23)
We find a similar situation in the Old Saxon Heliand (9th century). Heliand has a larger number of agreeing participles (18) in the complement
of HAVE than many of the other Old Germanic sources, and also a
higher number (74) of ambiguous examples; 34 examples have nonagreeing participles, 6 involve intransitive verbs, and 17 have dative and
genitive objects (Ekbo 1943:112ff.). In other words, the use of perfectlike constructions with HAVE is somewhat extended, but there are also
examples of unambiguous perfects. Similarly, there is evidence for a
perfect tense in the Edda and the Grágás, but the perfect is still not the
preferred expression in the same way as it is in Present-Day Swedish.
Even in the Old Swedish texts, the frequency of perfects is lower than in
the present-day language.
We have seen that the distribution of the perfect with HAVE and the
perfect-like construction BE + participles of unaccusative verbs changes
over time. In Old Swedish, the perfect-like construction with BE is often
436
the preferred construction, whereas in Present-Day Swedish, the perfect
with HAVE is. To some extent, this change corresponds to a change in
the syntax-semantics of the perfect-like construction. In Old Swedish,
the construction with BE + active participle was lexically less restricted,
since the participial stativizer could attach also to procP. In Present-Day
Swedish, the stative past participles of unaccusative verbs tend to have
resultative aspect, whereas in older Swedish, examples with an experiential reading (where the participle has bounded aspect) occur more
generally. Hence, the modern use of the perfect tense was not established until the 17th century, when the perfect with HAVE is generalized
at the expense of the perfect-like construction with BE. In Present-Day
Icelandic, on the other hand, BE is still preferred to HAVE when there is
a choice between the two. In Norwegian, there is variation between
speakers and text types.
Speakers of Present-Day Swedish generally have a choice between
the simple present, the preterite and the present or past perfect. This
choice makes it possible for us to view a situation in different ways and
to order it temporally in relation to other situations and eventualities.
Similarly, we can view an eventuality as temporally bounded or unbounded, often independently of whether it has a given telos or not.
However, despite this choice, we tend to be predisposed to view an
eventuality in a specific way, and we tend to share this predisposition
with the people around us. For instance, the event of washing clothes is
much more likely to be viewed as bounded than the event of petting a
cat is, because we generally understand the former but not the latter as a
(house-hold) task that tends to take a given amount of time. However,
nothing in principle excludes that we view also the petting of the cat as a
house-hold task, and we can easily imagine a society where it would be.
In other words, when the child acquires a Swedish grammar and a
Swedish lexicon, he or she does not only acquire a system that makes a
distinction between present, past and perfect, but also a predisposition to
view situations and eventualities in certain ways, which is to a considerable extent shared with the rest of the linguistic community. This predisposition is, however, not static. An individual who starts working at a
cat shelter, might, for instance, begin to view the petting of a cat as quite
a typical task, and when he talks to other people about his work, they
might start doing the same.
Although the result is more general, the establishment of the perfect
tense can in a similar way be taken to begin with people who start
viewing situations in a new way. In the historical records, this change
can be observed as a change in frequency. The available choices are still
437
determined, or delimited, by the grammar of the speaker, and the oppositions between e.g. past, present, and perfect in the individual language, and the predisposition to view a situation in one way or another
is tied to these oppositions. At some stage in Old Germanic (which at
the time lacked a perfect tense), the construction with HAVE + resultant
state participle, which was previously available in the language, presumably became an unmarked way to express that a job of washing
clothes or petting the cat was done; in Present-Day Swedish, a stative
passive or a perfect is used, and in Present-Day Icelandic, the construction with vera búinn að might be.
438
11. Participles in time
This thesis has aimed at a better understanding of the development of
the perfect, particularly in Swedish. Like much previous work, I have
assumed that the perfect with HAVE developed from a construction
with possessive HAVE + participle, as in the example in (11:1a) which
partly shares both morphology and meaning with the perfect in (11:1b).
(11:1)
a.
b.
Han har äntligen fönstren
tvättade.
he has finally the.windows clean.PTC.PL
‘He finally has the windows cleaned.’
Han har äntligen tvättat
fönstren.
he has finally wash.SUP the.windows
‘He has finally cleaned the windows.’
While it is uncontroversial that the perfect has developed from constructions like (11:1a), neither the analysis of these constructions nor the
analysis of the perfect is given. In other words, the challenge for the
historical study is not to isolate the origin of the perfect, but rather to
analyse both the perfect and the perfect-like constructions and to relate
them syntactically and semantically to each other. This has been an
important focus of the thesis. I have argued that the perfect tense has a
biclausal structure, and that the semantics of the present and past perfect
depends on the combination of a finite present or past tense, a non-finite
past tense, the auxiliary and the aspectual composition of the participle.
The perfect participle is tensed; it has T with a past tense value in its
structure. Past participles in perfect-like constructions are, on the other
hand, tenseless and stative, and they can have varying aspectual and
verbal composition.
The distinctions between different participles raise the question of
category membership and participial morphology. Apart from the supine
form and certain adjectival participles, the different participles are
generally homonymous in the Germanic languages (but not in e.g.
Greek). This question is addressed in section 11.1. In section 11.2, I
summarize some general points and results of the thesis.
439
11.1. Past, perfect and other participles
Much of the discussion in the previous chapters has concerned the properties of stative past participles and perfect participles. The investigations have led to finer distinctions among the participles (even though
eventive past participles have been disregarded). I have proposed that
target state participles in Swedish involve resP embedded under Voice,
whereas resultant state participles involve a bounded or resultative
AspP, VoiceP and a full verb phrase, necessarily including initP. Perfect
participles differ from target state participles and resultant state participles by not involving a stativizer and by having TP; the structure of
the verb phrase varies depending on the participial verb. The structures
are repeated in (11:2) and (11:3). We have seen that the structures of
target state participles and resultant state participles can vary between
languages. For instance, German resultant state participles do not seem
to include initP.
(11:2)
a.
b.
(11:3)
Target state participles:
[VoiceP Voice [resP res]]
Resultant state participles:
i. [AspP Asp [VoiceP Voice [initP init [procP proc]]]]
ii. [AspP Asp [VoiceP Voice [initP init [procP proc [resP res]]]]]
Perfect participles:
[TP T [AspP Asp [VoiceP Voice [initP init [procP proc [resP res]]]]]]
These distinctions appear to be necessary if we are to account for the
varying interpretations of participles, for differences in the availability
of adverbial modification and for differences in lexical restrictions.
They also make it possible for us to account for the extended use of the
perfect-like construction with BE in older Swedish without assuming
that BE was a temporal auxiliary that took a perfect participial complement; in this way, we can explain why BE is unattested in past counterfactuals. Moreover, we can account for the agreeing participles in the
complement of HAVE in the Edda and the Grágás without assuming
that perfect participles were inflected in Old Norse. Historically, the
development of the perfect can be taken to involve a reanalysis of a
tenseless resultant state participle as a tensed perfect participle. In Swedish, the perfect participle has become morphologically distinct from the
past participles, and in Greek the target state and resultant state participles may involve different morphology.
440
While the distinctions among the participles thus seem to be required
both for the synchronic analysis and for the account of the historical development, they leave us with the question what it is that characterizes a
participle. Disregarding the supine form in Swedish and some Norwegian dialects, and certain adjectival participles, the participles have
the same form in the Germanic languages, be they stative, eventive or
even tensed. While it is possible in principle that the realizations of the
different structures are acquired separately, it would clearly be preferred
if the homonymy could be accounted for as something other than an
accident.
In traditional grammars, participles are viewed as the adjectival forms
of verbs. Following Josefsson (1998), we could account for the fact that
many past participles have both adjectival and verbal properties by assuming that participles can have verbal structure embedded under an
adjectival head which denotes a property (see chapter 2 above). This
kind of analysis can, however, not be extended to perfect participles.
Throughout the Germanic languages, perfect participles behave like
verbs and not like adjectives, independently of whether they are morphologically distinct from past participles or not. Also (active) participles in the complement of GET or Old Swedish and Icelandic gita/
geta must be treated separately; consider again the Swedish examples in
(11:4) (= (10:51)) and Icelandic in (11:5) (= (10:47)) where the participles lack adjectival inflection, and hardly denote a property anymore
than infinitives do.258
(11:4)
a.
b.
(11:5)
De fick taget/tagit
från honom belöningen.
they got take.PTC.N.SG/take.SUP from him
the.reward
‘They got the reward taken from him.’
Jag fick inte sovet/sovit.
I
got not sleep.PTC.N.SG/sleep.SUP
‘I didn’t get any sleep.’
Það getur snjóað
á morgun.
it
may snow.PTC.N.SG tomorrow
‘It may snow tomorrow.’ (epistemic)
(Thráinsson 2007:424f.)
In this thesis, I have, following Ramchand (2008a), assumed that there
is no single head corresponding to the traditional category verb. Instead,
258
Cf. Emonds (2006) who accounts for the difference between verbal and adjectival passives by the assumption that the adjectival head that hosts the participial
morphology is absent in LF in verbal passives, but not in adjectival passives.
441
verb forms spell out a possibly complex structure, depending on the
combination of category features in their lexical entry. In fact, two individual verbs might not have any verb structure in common; a stative
verb like know lacks proc, whereas a process verb like unaccusative
grow involves only proc. In this way, we can capture the different
behaviour of these verbs. On the other hand, the finite forms of know
and grow presumably have the same structure above the verb phrase;
they include (at least) VoiceP, AspP, TP and CP (or the specific heads
of the C-domain, e.g. Fin and Force). Voice morphology is introduced
by Voice, aspectual morphology by Asp, tense morphology by T, and
subject-agreement is presumably also determined by structure higher in
the clause. We could assume that the category adjective should be split
in a similar way, and that, therefore, two individual adjectives do not necessarily share the same categorial heads, but share structure above the
‘lexical’ domain. The adjectival properties of participles could then be
derived if we assume that participles (with adjectival properties) share
the functional structure with adjectives and not with verbs, or because
they lack some of the structure of verbs. On the present account, all enparticiples with adjectival properties are tenseless, and unlike tenseless
infinitival and active participles in the complement of GET, they do not
have an unvalued T in their structure.259 In Swedish, supine morphology
is restricted to participles which involve a (valued or unvalued) T (see
chapter 10, section 10.3.3 above). A consequence of an account along
these lines is that we have to assume that constructions that have verbal
but not adjectival properties always involve a (valued or unvalued) T.
This still leaves us with the question of what unifies the different
participles. A couple of possibilities can be excluded directly. First, we
can rule out that the participial suffix is a type of passive morphology.
Not all participles are passive, and, as we have seen, participial morphology can be combined with passive morphology. Secondly, the morphology of en-participles does not carry a specific aspectual value (e.g.
bounded). If they did, we would expect the possible readings of the perfect tense to be restricted, e.g. to the experiential or resultative perfect,
as in Greek; recall that Greek perfect participles have perfective morphology and that the universal perfect therefore is excluded. Moreover,
also past participles can have different aspectual values (resultative or
bounded), and I have suggested that progressive state participles and
target state participles, in fact, lack aspectual value altogether; these
readings are instead a consequence of the composition of the verb
259
Cf. Embick (2004a) and Alexiadou & Anagnostopoulou (2008), who assume
that en-participles are AspPs.
442
phrase. In addition, not all en-participles convey anteriority; progressive
state participles do not. Finally, although the participial morphology
sometimes spells out a structure that includes a stativizer, not all participles are stative.
We can conclude that if the different en-participles share some
property, this property must be understood in a fairly abstract or general
sense. We could assume that the participial suffix is merged in a phrase
(e.g. a participle phrase) that makes little or no semantic contribution
(see e.g. von Stechow 1998 and Lundquist 2009 for suggestions along
these lines). An assumption that the participle suffix heads a participle
phrase simplifies accounts of certain cross-linguistic differences in their
properties. For instance, Holmberg (2002) accounts for correlations
between word order and participle agreement by assuming variations in
the properties and feature set-up of the participle phrase in the Scandinavian languages and English. However, the assumption that participles
are participle phrases says very little about what it means for something
to be a participle. In fact, it amounts to little more than saying that all
participles are participles, and that this is what they have in common. A
different solution would clearly be preferred. Throughout this thesis, I
have tried to avoid assuming structure which lacks semantic content and
which is specific to particular constructions.
In the analyses that I have pursued in this thesis, the highest head in
all participial structures is an element (Voice, Asp or T) which has a
temporal argument in its specifier; I have not included a CP-layer in the
structure of perfect participles. In line with the analysis by Ippolito
(1999), we could assume that the absence of a CP-layer is, in fact, what
characterizes a participle. Ippolito argues that participial morphology in
Italian (which appears in both verbal and nominal contexts) is a default
spell out of an inflectional head (i.e., a head in the T-domain) which has
not merged with C. However, the question remains how this would distinguish participles from infinitives.260 We know that also the properties
of infinitives can vary (see e.g. Pesetsky 1992, Wiklund 2007). In this
thesis, I have considered stative past participles and perfect participles,
260
It is often assumed that ECM infinitives lacks CP (Chomsky 1981, 2000), but
there are alternatives. On the basis of their distribution, Pesetsky & Torrego
(2004:531f. fn. 27) suggest that both ECM and raising infinitives are CPs. It has
often been pointed out that CP shares properties with DP (see e.g. Abney 1987), and
sentences and noun phrases have similar external distribution. It should, however, be
noted that also participial structures can have a distribution very similar to that of
infinitives, and that verbs like GET and HAVE often can take both infinitival and
participial complements.
443
and how they relate to each other, but I have not been concerned with
the question how participles relate to infinitives and nominalizations. To
answer the question what characterizes a participle, the distinctions between participial forms, infinitives and nominalizations must be investigated in detail.
11.2. Concluding remarks
The assumption that all human beings conceptualize eventualities and
entities in space and time and in relation to themselves is uncontroversial; how this assumption should be understood and implemented is
not. In this thesis, I have assumed that the structure of the verb phrase
and the structure of the T-domain as outlined in chapters 2 and 3 are
common to all human languages. The cognitive capacity to acquire a
verb like run and anchor it in time is therefore common to all humans,
and it is tied to the human linguistic competence. In other words, I have
assumed that Gothic has a tripartite verb phrase structure and a tripartite
T-domain, just like Present-Day Swedish has. In Gothic, as in Swedish,
the event time is related to an assertion time which in turn is related to
the speech time. This similarity between Gothic and Swedish is fairly
general and abstract, and it is independent of the particular morphology
of the languages. I have simply taken what Chomsky (2001) calls the
Uniformity Principle for granted: “In absence of compelling evidence to
the contrary, assume languages to be uniform, with variety restricted to
easily detectable properties of utterance” (2001:2).261
I have assumed that Swedish speakers can view an eventuality as
bounded or unbounded also in the absence of specialized morphology
(see particularly chapter 6). Among other things, this accounts for the
fact that different readings of the perfect are available. The content of
present tense morphology or perfective morphology can, on the other
hand, vary depending on language; for instance, the English and the
Swedish present tenses do not have precisely the same meaning. Distinctions between present and past, or perfective and imperfective, must
clearly also be related to what other temporal and aspectual distinctions
are made in the individual language, and their meaning can, consequently, be more or less specific. The fact that Swedish and Greek can relate
261
Along similar lines, Borer argues “for a view of language variation which is
firmly associated with the morpho-phonological properties of grammatical formatives, rather than with syntactic structures or the semantics of grammatical formatives, as such” (2005a:32).
444
the event time to the assertion time and order the assertion time in relation to the time of speech, does not necessarily mean that Swedish and
Greek share the same temporal-aspectual system. To say that all languages are governed by the same cognitive linguistic principles is not to
say that they are all the same also on a less general level. Much work in
linguistics is devoted to investigating the tension between generality or
universality and variability.
In the analysis of the perfect and the participles, I have attempted to
limit the number of construction specific elements. The different participles involve elements which are required also in the analysis of finite
clauses (T, Asp, Voice and the heads of the verb phrase), and which
make a semantic contribution. The cross-linguistic and diachronic variation is instead accounted for by assuming that not all elements are included in the structure of a given participle, and by variations in the content of these elements.
In chapter 3, I argued for a structure of perfects that is largely the
same across languages, and consequently also for a semantics of the perfect that shares important features across languages (the semantics of a
non-finite past). In this way, we can identify a cross-linguistic category
perfect. However, I have assumed that Gothic lacked a perfect tense and
that the temporal-aspectual system of Gothic in this respect is different
from that of Present-Day Swedish. Another possibility would be to say
that the difference is only superficial; this seems to be what Traugott
(1972:91) assumes when she states that Old English failed to distinguish
regularly between perfect and preterite in the surface structure. This
would mean that Gothic preterite morphology is underspecified with regard to the past-perfect distinction, much like Swedish verbal morphology is underspecified with regard to the distinction bounded-unbounded. We would then have to account for the fact that Greek perfects
are sometimes translated with present tense morphology in Gothic.
More crucially, given the analysis of the perfect outlined in chapter 3,
we would have to assume either that a structure can be biclausal without
any morphological evidence for this, or that the semantics of the perfect
need not correspond to the structure of a perfect. In the former case, we
would have to assume that morphology says little or nothing about
syntactic structure, and in the latter case, we would be forced to assume
that semantic interpretation is independent of syntactic structure. The
consequences would in any case be both far-reaching and unfortunate; it
would leave us with little possibility to test for syntactic structure, and it
would make it virtually impossible to know what the underlying system
is (for the speaker as well as for the linguist), since it is not necessarily
445
reflected in morphosyntax. It would in other words be impossible for us
to rule out that Swedish shares the same temporal-aspectual system as
Greek, or, say, the honorific system of Japanese. Instead, I have viewed
the development of the perfect as a change in the available syntactic
structures. This change is necessarily tied to a change in morphology,
more specifically to the reinterpretation of HAVE and the participial
morphology.
As noted, there are cross-linguistic differences in the syntax-semantics of the perfect; these lie either in the properties of the present tense,
in the properties of the auxiliary, or in the aspectual morphology of the
participle. A difference in the semantics of the present tense accounts for
the fact that Swedish and German allows a present perfect with a future
reference time, whereas English does not. Differences in the auxiliary
account for the fact that German allows positional past time adverbials
in the present perfect, whereas Swedish and English do not. Finally, differences in the morphology of the participle accounts for the fact that
the universal reading is available in the Germanic languages but not in
Greek. The differences between languages are tied to morphology and to
lexical items (e.g. present tense morphology or the auxiliary HAVE).
Throughout this thesis, I have, following Ramchand (2008a), assumed
that verbs are lexically specified with combinations of the features init,
proc and res. These specifications can often account for the behaviour
of verbs, e.g. with regard to participle formation. However, we have also
seen that the encyclopaedic content of the items matters for precisely
how they can be used, e.g. if a target state participle is possible or if a
resultant state participle is natural or more marked. We can assume that
the encyclopaedic content is dependent on the category features; that is,
the specific content of a verb like run is tied to the fact that run is a process verb that takes a subject which is Initiator and that run occurs in
certain syntactic contexts and not in others. The encyclopaedic content
is, however, also variable, and it can depend on all the specific experiences and dispositions of the individual, and on social and contextual factors. Along similar lines, the differences between languages
like Swedish, English and German with regard to e.g. the present tense
or the auxiliary should be understood at a fairly abstract level. In chapter
4, we saw that although there is evidence for a perfect tense in the oldest
Scandinavian records, the number of examples is considerably lower
than in the present-day languages; for Old and Middle English, this is
even clearer. In chapter 3, I pointed to variation within the Scandinavian
languages, and noted that a perfect in Swedish or Norwegian is not
always translated with a perfect in English. The conclusion is that the
446
abstract syntax-semantics of the perfect must allow for the perfect to be
established in slightly different ways in different linguistic communities.
447
Sammanfattning
De germanska språken har utvecklat ett tempus perfektum med det temporala hjälpverbet HAVA eller VARA + ett particip bildat med suffixet
*-þa- (I.E. *-to-) för svaga verb (t.ex. väntad) och *-ena-/*-ana- (I.E.
*-e/o-no-) för starka verb (skriven).1 Tidigare forskare har antagit att utvecklingen startade med en konstruktion med possessivt HAVA och ett
resultativt och statiskt particip, som i (1a) nedan (se t.ex. Meillet 1917).
Resultatet av förändringen är ett komplext tempus som i (1b).
(1)
a.
b.
Han har väskorna packade.
Han har packat väskorna.
Som en del av den grammatiska förändringen utvecklas HAVA till ett
temporalt hjälpverb, men också participet får ändrade egenskaper.
Svenskan har med tiden fått en morfologisk distinktion mellan particip i
passiva konstruktioner och particip i perfektum; jfr participet skrivet i
passiven i (2a) och supinformen skrivit i (2b).
(2)
a.
b.
Brevet är skrivet av någon annan.
Hon har skrivit brevet.
Avhandlingen syftar till en bättre förståelse av framväxten av perfektum,
särskilt i svenskan. Centrala frågor är hur den syntaktiska och semantiska
skillnaden mellan den perfektumliknande konstruktionen i (1a) och perfektum i (1b) ska förstås, och vad som över huvud taget avses med perfektum. Genom att klargöra de syntaktiska och semantiska skillnaderna
mellan olika perfektumliknande konstruktioner kan också det språkhistoriska förlopp som konstituerar framväxten av perfektum belysas.
1
Termen perfektum innefattar här både det som traditionellt kallas perfektum och
pluskvamperfektum; jag betecknar det som normalt kallas perfektum presens perfektum (jfr eng. present perfect) men bibehåller den traditionella termen pluskvamperfektum. Jag antar att skillnaden mellan de två beror på hjälpverbets tempus. Versalt
HAVA och VARA används för former av vara och ha i svenskan, have and be i
engelskan, sein och haben i tyskan och så vidare, oberoende av skillnader i realisering.
448
Analysen av perfektum och av de perfektumliknande konstruktionerna
bör fånga den synkrona och diakrona variationen. I avhandlingen antar
jag att flera olika element samverkar till konstruktionernas syntaktiska
egenskaper och betydelse samt att de gör det på olika sätt beroende på
språk, konstruktion och tidpunkt. Jag tillskriver både particip och hjälpverb inre syntaktisk struktur och kan på så vis relatera konstruktionerna
syntaktiskt till varandra. De syntaktiska element som antas i analysen är
inte konstruktionsspecifika utan motiveras också av till exempel satsens
struktur, och de har semantiskt innehåll (vilket kan variera mellan språk).
Jag föreslår att en del particip har självständig temporal betydelse, medan
andra particip är tempuslösa. Vidare har en del av de tempuslösa participen självständig aspektuell betydelse, andra inte. Participens egenskaper
beror även på vilka delar av verbfrasen som ingår. I likhet med Ramchand
(2008) antar jag en semantiskt motiverad, tredelad verbfrasstruktur med
en fras (initP) som uttrycker ett initialtillstånd, en fras (procP) som uttrycker process eller övergång samt en fras (resP) som uttrycker det måltillstånd (eng. target state) som aktionen leder till.
I den historiska studien följer jag perfektums utveckling i de språkhistoriska källorna och preciserar vad som förändras. Förekomsten av
konstruktioner med HAVA + particip undersöks i Beowulf, Otfrids Evangelienbuch, i det nordiska runmaterialet, samt i fyra fornvästnordiska och
fyra fornsvenska texter. Principerna för växlingen mellan HAVA och
VARA + particip av intransitiva verb som komma och vissna (så kallade
icke-ackusativa eller mutativa verb; jfr Johannisson 1945) undersöks i ett
svenskt material från fornsvensk tid till början av 1700-talet; i så hög grad
som möjligt väljs ett centralsvenskt och talspråksnära material.
De konstruktioner som undersöks i det historiska materialet är ofta
grammatiskt möjliga i modern svenska (med delvis annan distribution och
andra begränsningar). En fördel med moderna data är naturligtvis att vi
som infödda talare kan utnyttja våra intuitioner och på så vis pröva hur
ofta ganska fina distinktioner mellan olika konstruktioner korrelerar med
skillnader i möjligheten till olika typer av adverbial och med skillnader i
tolkning eller kontextberoende. Moderna data kan således bidra till analysen av de historiska exemplen, och till förståelsen av förändringsförloppet, samtidigt som de historiska undersökningarna kan hjälpa oss att
upptäcka distinktioner också i nuspråket.
449
Tempus perfektum
Perfektum är både semantiskt och morfologiskt komplexare än presens
och preteritum. I preteritum tycks dåtidsadverbial som klockan 6 nödvändigtvis ange tiden för aktionen (aktionstiden, AT); se (3). I pluskvamperfekt kan adverbialet också specificera en tid som aktionen föregår; jfr
(4a) och (4b). Reichenbach (1947) betecknar denna andra tid referenstiden; i (4a) är referenstiden förlagd till klockan 6, medan den i (4b) ligger
klockan 7.
Peter gick hem klockan 6.
(3)
(4)
a.
b.
(Igår kom Frida till Peters kontor klockan sex.) Men Peter hade gått
hem klockan sex.
AT (gå hem) före klockan sex
(Igår kom Frida till Peters kontor klockan sju.) Men Peter hade gått
hem klockan sex.
AT (gå hem) = klockan 6
(cf. Klein 1992:327)
I likhet med Zagona (1995, 2007) och andra antar jag att tempus (liksom
temporala prepositioner) är predikat som tar temporala fraser vilka uttrycker tidsintervall som argument. För perfektum föreslår jag en komplex struktur där de temporala egenskaperna kan härledas från kombinationen av hjälpverbets tempus (presens eller preteritum), participets infinita tempus och det temporala hjälpverbet (jfr t.ex. Julien 2001). Det
particip (eller supinum) som används för att bilda perfektum kan antas
uttrycka ett infinit preteritum, men detta preteritum tolkas inte i relation
till talögonblicket utan i relation till en punkt inom hjälpverbets aktionstid. Jag antar att skillnaderna mellan de nordiska språken, tyska och
engelska kan bero antingen på variationer i betydelsen av presens eller på
skillnader i hjälpverbets egenskaper. En skillnad i betydelsen hos presens
kan till exempel förklara varför svenska men inte engelska tillåter en
framtida referenstid; jfr det grammatiska svenska exemplet i (5) med det
motsvarande engelska exemplet i (6) som är en semantisk anomali (vilket
markeras med #).
(5)
(6)
Nästa vecka har jag läst klart boken.
# Next week, I have finished reading the book.
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Relationen mellan tiden för participaktionen och den tid som ges av hjälpverbets tempus kan vara av olika slag. I avhandlingen diskuteras huvudsakligen de tre betydelser av perfektum som illustreras i (7).
(7)
a.
Frida har besökt Göteborg många gånger. EXPERIENTIELLT
b.
c.
Frida har bott i Göteborg i fem år nu.
Frida har just kommit hem.
PERFEKTUM
UNIVERSELLT PERFEKTUM
RESULTATIVT PERFEKTUM
Så kallat experientiellt perfektum, som i (7a), uttrycker att tiden för participaktionen (eller aktionerna) helt och hållet föregår referenstiden (som
här sammanfaller med talögonblicket). Universellt perfektum anger å
andra sidan att tiden för participaktionen börjar vid någon tidpunkt i
dåtiden och fortsätter fram till och med referenstiden. Till skillnad från
(7a) hävdar exemplet i (7b) att participaktionen fortfarande pågår i nuet;
Frida bor alltså fortfarande i Göteborg. Resultativt perfektum, som i (7c),
anger att participaktionen föregår referenstiden, men att det måltillstånd
som aktionen leder till (och som specificeras av participverbet) fortfarande föreligger; (7c) uttrycker att hon är hemma. De olika betydelserna
kan illustreras som i (8), där + representerar participets aktionstid och ×
tiden för måltillståndet; TÖ är talögonblicket. Gemensamt för de tre olika
typerna av perfektum är att participets aktionstid är relaterad till ett
intervall som börjar i dåtiden och sträcker sig framåt i tiden; i presens
perfektum inkluderas talögonblicket nödvändigtvis i detta intervall (jfr
McCoard 1978, Iatridou et al. 2001, Rothstein 2008). Det intervall som
aktionstiden är relaterad till är den tematiska tiden, dvs. den tid som
satsens utsaga kan sägas gälla (SAG 1999, 4:211).
(8)
a.
b.
c.
Experientiellt perfektum:
——[—++++++++—TÖ]→
Universellt perfektum:
———++[++++++++TÖ]++→
Resultativt perfektum.
——— [—++×××TÖ]×→
I likhet med Iatridou et al. (2001) och Pancheva (2003) antar jag att
perfektums olika betydelser beror på participets aspektuella morfologi. Ett
perfektivt particip ger en experentiell betydelse, medan imperfektiv
aspekt ger en universell tolkning och resultativ aspekt ett resultativt perfektum. Jag utgår således från att svenska gör aspektuella distinktioner
utan att dessa nödvändigtvis realiseras i morfologin. I likhet med t.ex.
Platzack (1979) antar jag att aspekt är principiellt oberoende av aktionsart. Aspekt rör hur aktioner förankras i tid (jfr (8) ovan), medan aktionsart
451
relaterar till aktionens inre struktur. På så vis kan vi inte bara förstå de
olika betydelserna av perfektum utan också förklara t.ex. varför verb som
duscha, trots att de har oavgränsad aktionsart och alltså inte specificerar
någon naturlig slutpunkt, kan modifieras med såväl adverbial av typen på
tio minuter som med adverbial av typen i tio minuter; se (9).
(9)
a.
b.
Han duschade i tio minuter.
Han duschade på tio minuter.
Vi kan anta att på-adverbial är förenliga både med aktioner som har
avgränsad aktionsart och med aktioner med oavgränsad aktionsart, men
att de kräver perfektiv aspekt. På detta sätt behöver vi alltså inte som
SAG (1999, 4:326) anta att distinktionen avgränsad-oavgränsad aktionsart
ibland är upphävd i svenskan.
Växlingen HAVA/VARA i äldre svenska
Tempus perfektum saknas i den gotiska bibeln och i de äldsta fornhögtyska källorna. I det äldsta fornnordiska materialet återfinns å andra sidan
redan exempel på perfektum med HAVA + particip (jfr Ekbo 1943); ett
runsvenskt exempel med perfektum av VARA ges i (10). Statiska och
intransitiva verb förekommer inte i den perfektumliknande konstruktionen
med possessivt HAVA, och exemplet i (10) kan därför antas vara ett
otvetydigt exempel på perfektum.2
(10)
han hafþi : ystarla u(m) : uaRit : lenki : tuu : a:ustarla : meþ :
inkuari
‘Han hade varit i väst länge, dog i öst med Ingvar.’
(Sö 173)
Alla typer av verb finns belagda i perfektum i de äldsta nordiska källorna,
men beläggen med perfektum av icke-ackusativa verb (komma, vissna) är
få. Dessa verb konstrueras i stället gärna med VARA; jfr (11a) som har
HAVA och (11b) som har VARA. Konstruktion med VARA är möjlig
också i modern svenska, men den är mer begränsad och ofta stilistiskt
markerad.
2
Exemplet återges på samma sätt som i den samnordiska runtextdatabasen
(www.nordiska.uu.se/forskn/samnord.htm), varifrån det också är hämtat.
452
(11)
a.
b.
hafþe þin kona hær comit. aldre skulde hon hæþan coma liuande:
‘Hade din fru kommit hit, skulle hon aldrig ha kommit levande
härifrån.’
(Leg s. 19)
Han […] spordhe hwi iak var komin hære
‘Han frågade varför jag var hitkommen.’
(Ivan ca 1303:462)
Av Johannissons omfattande studie från 1945 av växlingen mellan HAVA
och VARA + particip av icke-ackusativa verb framgår att en stor del av
beläggen med HAVA i äldre svenska har kontrafaktisk tolkning; det
gäller exemplet i (11a) ovan. Bortsett från något enda undantagsfall är
VARA överhuvudtaget inte belagt i kontrafaktiver med dåtidsbetydelse i
det historiska materialet, och vi kan därför utgå från att HAVA var den
enda möjligheten. Samma skillnad mellan HAVA och VARA kan observeras i de moderna språken. Både passiva och aktiva konstruktioner
med VARA + particip har nödvändigtvis presensbetydelse i kontrafaktiver i modern svenska. För en kontrafaktiv med dåtidsbetydelse krävs
pluskvamperfekt med HAVA; se (12) och (13).
(12)
a. Jag önskar att han redan vore hemkommen.
b. * Jag önskar att han vore hemkommen till mötet igår.
c. Jag önskar att han hade kommit hem till mötet igår.
(13)
a. Jag önskar att tröjan redan vore tvättad.
b. * Jag önskar att tröjan vore tvättad till festen igår.
c. Jag önskar att tröjan hade varit tvättad till festen igår.
Samma sak gäller för de övriga germanska språken. Konstruktion med
VARA i kontrafaktiver med dåtidsbetydelse är möjlig bara i språk där
VARA är temporalt hjälpverb (t.ex. danska och tyska), och inte heller i de
språken kan passiver med VARA ha annat än presensbetydelse i kontrafaktiver.
Med utgångspunkt i den analys av kontrafaktiver som föreslagits av
Iatridou (2000) och i likhet med McFadden & Alexiadou (2005, 2006a,
2006b, 2007), förklarar jag restriktionerna på konstruktionen med VARA
genom att anta att VARA inte var ett temporalt hjälpverb i äldre svenska.
Den relevanta skillnaden mellan konstruktionerna med HAVA och
VARA kan antas ligga i participets tempusmorfologi. Temporalt HAVA
konstrueras med ett particip med preteritummorfologi (dvs. supinum),
medan VARA tar ett tempuslöst particip. I pluskvamperfektum kombineras participets infinita preteritum med hjälpverbets finita preteritum.
Kontrafaktiver med dåtidsbetydelse kan antas behöva två lager preteritummorfologi, och de kräver därför pluskvamperfektum.
453
Trots att konstruktionen med VARA alltså inte ska analyseras som ett
uttryck för perfektum i äldre svenska tycks den mindre begränsad än i
isländska. I äldre svenska, men inte i isländska, förekommer VARA i
exempel med experientiell betydelse, som i (14).
(14)
a.
b.
Thet är offta skeedt, at […]
(Petri *1493:3)
Vbbo […] bygde Vbsal / Ther altidh är skedt Kongars waal
(Messenius I *1579:4)
I modern svenska kan vi notera en skillnad mellan olika typer av statiska
passiver med VARA + particip; jfr (15a) som är grammatisk med ett
satsfinalt frekvensadverbial som ofta och (15b) som är ogrammatisk.
(15)
a. Huset är ommålat ofta.
b. * Staden är förstörd ofta.
Med Kratzer (2000), kan vi skilja på particip som uttrycker ett (ospecificerat) resultat (eng. resultant state) av en aktion av vilket slag som helst,
och particip som uttrycker det måltillstånd som specificeras av det verb
som participet är bildat av. Resultattillstånden är irreversibla och tillåter
därför inte adverbial som fortfarande, medan måltillstånden är reversibla
och tillåter fortfarande; jfr (16a) och (16b).
(16)
a.
b.
Huset är (*fortfarande) ommålat.
Staden är fortfarande förstörd.
Skillnaderna mellan particip som uttrycker resultattillstånd och particip
som uttrycker måltillstånd kan antas hänga samman med aspekt. Endast
de förra participen har ett självständigt aspektuellt värde oberoende av
matrisverbet. Egenskaperna hos aspektlösa particip beror istället på verbfrasens struktur och kan ofta förutsägas utifrån egenskaperna hos det ingående verbet. I likhet med Ramchand (2008) antar jag att partiklar och
vissa verb kan associeras med en struktur som innehåller ett måltillstånd.
Som nämnt antar jag att skillnaden mellan resultativt och experientiellt
perfektum är aspektuell och därför i princip oberoende av tempus. Också
particip som uttrycker resultattillstånd kan ha antingen experientiell eller
resultativ betydelse, och participen är inte begränsade till verb som uttrycker avgränsad aktionsart; se (17). Exemplet i (17a) uttrycker att vattnandet av blommorna är över; vattna blommorna är en oavgränsad aktion,
men exemplet har perfektiv aspekt. Också exemplet i (17b) har experientiell betydelse; det måltillstånd som specificeras av participet hem-
454
kommen föreligger inte vid talögonblicket. Det kan noteras att passiva och
aktiva particip beter sig på samma sätt. Huruvida tolkningen är aktiv eller
passiv beror på verbfrasens struktur.
(17)
a.
b.
Blommorna är vattnade.
Hon är både hemkommen och utgången. (Nu vet jag inte var hon är.)
I modern svenska är konstruktion med VARA + aktiva eller passiva particip som uttrycker resultattillstånd ofta markerade och begränsade till
specifika kontexter. Genom att anta att så inte var fallet i äldre svenska
kan vi förklara bruket av VARA + particip i äldre svenska utan att anta att
VARA var ett temporalt hjälpverb. I svenskan före år 1600 föredrogs
framför perfektum med HAVA ofta konstruktion med VARA + ett
tempuslöst particip som uttrycker ett resultattillstånd. De konstruktioner
som uttrycker resultattillstånd har delvis samma egenskaper som dem perfektum uppvisar och kan ha liknande betydelse. Det är därför tänkbart att
framväxten av perfektum med HAVA började med ett utvidgat bruk av
konstruktioner som uttrycker resultattillstånd.
VARA + particip i nusvenskan, verbfras och participstruktur
Konstruktion med VARA + aktivt particip tycks som noterat ha haft en
mindre begränsad tillämpning i äldre svenska än i isländska. I de moderna
språken är situationen den motsatta: bruket av VARA är mer restriktivt i
svenska än i isländska; jfr de ogrammatiska svenska exemplen i (18) med
motsvarande isländska exempel i (19).
(18)
a. * Barnet är drunknat.
b. * Det är blivet fint.
(19)
a.
b.
Barnið er drukknað.
barnet är drunknat
Þetta er orðið fínt.
detta är blivet fint
I det mer talspråksnära centralsvenska källmaterial som jag har analyserat
sker förlusten av VARA huvudsakligen under 1600-talet. Vissa typer av
verb är under förändringens gång mer benägna att konstrueras med
HAVA än andra, och redan i början av utvecklingen kan verb som råka
växla mellan HAVA och VARA i till synes likartade kontexter; jfr (20a)
och (20b).
455
(20)
a.
b.
genom hwars wållande then pomerska arméen […] war råkad i sådan
decadence
(Spegel *1645:5)
at the andre, som i föllie wore, hade råkat i så stoor olykko
(Spegel *1645:139)
I modern svenska är konstruktion med VARA + aktivt particip i många
fall stilistiskt markerad och ovanlig, men restriktionerna är ändå i huvudsak systematiska, och grammatikaliteten korrelerar med verbtyp. Med den
tredelade verbfrasstruktur som etableras av Ramchand (2008) får de olika
verbtyperna delvis olika struktur. I modern svenska har particip som betecknar resultattillstånd nödvändigtvis en fullständigt utvecklad verbfras
där initP (den fras som uttrycker ett initialtillstånd) ingår, och participet
uttrycker därför alltid agens eller kausativitet. Verb som drunkna och
bliva som inte associeras med en agentiv eller kausativ verbfrasstruktur är
ogrammatiska med VARA, medan particip av möjligt agentiva verb som
resa (hem) är grammatiska; jfr (18) med de grammatiska exemplen i (21).
(21)
a.
b.
Hon är redan hemrest.
Hon är frivilligt hitflyttad från Stockholm.
Möjligheten till konstruktion med VARA + aktivt particip brukar användas som test för icke-ackusativitet, men man antar också ofta att ickeackusativa verb kännetecknas av icke-agentivitet. Mot bakgrund av den
närmare undersökningen av svenskan, och med en verbfras med fler komponenter, måste den traditionella avgränsningen av icke-ackusativer omvärderas.
Possessivt och temporalt HAVA
Distinktionerna mellan olika typer av statiska particip är viktiga för analysen av den perfektumliknande konstruktion som perfektum med HAVA
kan antas ha utvecklats ur. Precis som VARA kan HAVA förekomma
med både particip som uttrycker måltillstånd, som i (22a), och particip
som uttrycker resultattillstånd, som i (22b).
(22)
a.
b.
Hon har fortfarande kappkragen uppslagen.
Det känns bra att (*fortfarande) ha det gjort.
För att förstå likheterna och skillnaderna mellan HAVA och VARA antar
jag i likhet med tidigare forskning att possessivt HAVA har en struktur
som innehåller kopula och ett orealiserat prepositionellt led vilket bidrar
456
med transitivitet och possessiv betydelse, och vilket etablerar en relation
av det slag som vi finner mellan objekten i dubbelobjektskonstruktioner.
Jag föreslår att temporalt HAVA i språk som svenska och engelska också
innehåller ett led av detta slag, men att det tar temporala och inte nominala argument.3 På så vis är det möjligt att förklara de syntaktiska och
semantiska skillnaderna mellan possessivt och temporalt HAVA. Genom
att anta att den temporala prepositionen (liksom prepositionen i) uttrycker
inklusion, och därmed bidrar till perfektums betydelse, blir det dessutom
möjligt att förklara varför dåtidsadverbial som igår inte är möjliga i presens perfektum i språk som svenska (om man bortser från en modal tolkning); se (23).
* Frida har ätit ett äpple igår.
(23)
Jag föreslår att den relevanta skillnaden mellan svenska och tyska (som
tillåter dåtidsadverbial i presens perfektum) är att tyskans temporala hjälpverb saknar temporal preposition och att perfektums betydelse därför är
mindre specifik. Det kan noteras att språk med perfektum av det tyska
slaget normalt tycks ha både HAVA och VARA som temporala hjälpverb; se (24).
(24)
a.
b.
Er ist gestern gekommen.
han är igår kommen
‘Han kom igår.’ (Presens perfekt)
Er hat gestern gearbeitet.
han har arbetat igår
‘Han arbetade igår.’ (Presens perfekt)
Hjälpverben HAVA och VARA i tyskan är med den här analysen två
olika realiseringar av kopulan. Hjälpverbsselektion kan betraktas som ett
kongruensfenomen.
Utvecklingen av perfektum
Givet den analys av perfektum och de perfektumliknande konstruktionerna som utvecklas och preciseras i avhandlingen innebär utvecklingen av
3
Jämför med prepositionen i som kan ta antingen temporala argument eller nominala
argument. I uttryck som spring dit i veckan etableras en relation mellan aktionstiden
för springandet och det tidsintervall som specificeras av veckan, medan uttryck som
trädet i skogen etablerar en (spatial) relation mellan referenterna till nominalfraserna
trädet och skogen.
457
perfektum att det uppstår ett particip med självständig temporal betydelse.
I svenskan har detta particip i en senare utveckling kommit att bli morfologiskt distinkt från de tempuslösa participen. Samtidigt innebär utvecklingen en omtolkning av det possessiva verbet HAVA som ett temporalt
hjälpverb, eller snarare en omtolkning av en possessiv preposition som en
temporal preposition. I en senare utveckling har HAVA i språk som tyska
förlorat den temporala prepositionen, och därmed har perfektum fått
mindre specifik betydelse.
Utgångspunkten för utvecklingen av perfektum antas således vara en
konstruktion med possessivt HAVA + ett tempuslöst particip med
aspektuell betydelse (resultativ eller perfektiv aspekt), vilken från början
är begränsad till vissa kontexter, men som generaliseras i processens
början. Exempel på HAVA + (tempuslöst) particip är ovanliga i gotiskan
och i de äldsta fornhögtyska texterna, men de förekommer. Liksom i
modern svenska uttrycker de då gärna att något är avklarat. Ett tidigt fornhögtyskt exempel ges i (25).
pi daz er in uuerolti kiuuerkot
hapeta
för det han i världen åstadkommit har
‘för det som han har åstadkommit i världen’
(Muspilli c. 830:36; från Grønvik 1986:35 f.)
(25)
Det finns anledning att anta att kongruensböjning skiljer temporala från
tempuslösa particip i de äldre nordiska språken, liksom i modern svenska
och isländska. Att exempel med HAVA + kongruensböjt particip är lika
vanliga som exempel med HAVA + inkongruent particip i Den poetiska
Eddan och den fornisländska lagen tyder därför på ett utvidgat bruk av
tempuslösa particip i den äldsta nordiskan. Två exempel från Den
poetiska Eddan ges i (26).
(26)
a.
b.
nú hefi ek dverga / […]
rétt um talða
nu har jag dvärg.M.PL.ACC
rätt om tala.PTC.M.PL.ACC
‘Nu har jag omtalat dvärgarna rätt.’
(Edda Vsp. 12)
Hefir þú kannaða
koni
óneisa?
har
du mönstra.PTC.M.PL.ACC man.M.PL.ACC käcka
‘Har du mönstrat de käcka männen?’
(Edda HH I 23)
Exempel av samma typ är möjliga också i modern svenska, men numera
väljs i regel perfektum före den perfektumliknande konstruktionen. Över
huvud taget kan vi observera förskjutningar i bruket av perfektum och de
perfektumliknande konstruktionerna över en ganska avsevärd tidsperiod.
458
Trots att utvecklingen av perfektum påbörjas redan i äldsta germanska tid,
och trots det begränsade språkhistoriska materialet, är det möjligt att spåra
förändringsförloppet och belysa den process som för svenskans del avslutas först i modern tid, när den morfologiska skillnaden mellan supinum
och andra preteritumparticip etableras.
I den här avhandlingen har jag utgått från att det finns ett grundläggande format för tempus och aspekt, vilket är gemensamt för alla mänskliga språk. Detta gör det möjligt att identifiera kategorin perfektum tvärspråkligt, trots att dess egenskaper kan variera något mellan språk (beroende på tempus- och aspektmorfologi samt hjälpverbets egenskaper).
Samtidigt har vi sett att perfektum, på en mindre abstrakt nivå, kan vara
etablerat på olika vis i olika språkgemenskaper.
459
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461
Hiärne I *1641 = Hiärne, Urban. Rosimunda tragœdia: uppförd på Uppsala
slott den 15 augusti 1665. Edited by Elias Wessén. Stockholm: Svenska
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heerden Celadons och den ädla herdinnan Stratonices kärleek. Edited by
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Horn *1629 = Horn, Agneta. Beskrivning över min vandringstid. Edited by
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Stockholm: Norstedt, 1893. [Investigated pp. 1–150.]
Kiöping *1621 = Kiöping, Nils Mattson. Nils Matssons Reesas korta Beskriffning. In: Een kort Beskriffning Uppå Trenne Reesor och Peregrinationer, sampt Konungarijket Japan. Printed by Johan Kankel in Wisingsborgh, 1674.
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Messenius I *1579 = Messenius, Johannes. Disa. Printed in Stockholm,
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Stockholm: P.A: Norstedt & Söners Förlag, 1923.
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462
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Old Norse texts
Edda. Die Lieder des Codex Regius nebst verwandten Denkmälern. Edited
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1936.
Grágás = Grágás. Islændernes lovbog i fristatens tid, Vígslóði. Edited by
Vilhjálmur Finsen. Kjøbenhamn, 1852. [Investigated pp. 144–192.]
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Íslenzk fornrit 1. Reykjavík: Hið íslenzka fornritafélag, 1968:3–28.
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Beowulf. Edited by George Jack. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994.
Otfrid c. 870 = Otfrids Evangelienbuch. Edited by Oskar Erdmann. Halle
(Saale) & Berlin: Verlag der Buchhandlung des Waisenhauses, 1934.
Icelandic corpora
FORNRIT. (Available at http://www.lexis.hi.is/corpus/leit.pl.)
Swedish corpora
PAROLE. (Available at http://spraakbanken.gu.se/parole/.)
SUC = Stockholm Umeå Corpus Version 2.0.
(Available at http://spraakbanken.gu.se/parole/.)
Norwegian corpora
BOKMÅL = The Oslo Corpus of Tagged Norwegian Texts, the Bokmål
part. Tekstlaboratoriet, ILN, Universitetet i Oslo.
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463
NYNORSK = The Oslo Corpus of Tagged Norwegian Texts, the Nynorsk
part. Tekstlaboratoriet, ILN, Universitetet i Oslo.
(Available at http://www.tekstlab.uio.no/norsk/bokmaal/english.html.)
NoTa = Norsk talespråkskorpus – Oslodelen, Tekstlaboratoriet, ILN, Universitetet i Oslo.
(Available at http://www.tekstlab.uio.no/nota/oslo/index.html.)
CITED TEXTS
Swedish texts
Bibeln. Bibel 2000. Bibelkommissionens översättning. Örebro: Marcus
förlag, 2000.
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George Stephens. (Svenska fornskriftsällskapets samlingar 7:1–2.)
Stockholm, 1847.
Birgitta 14th c. = Heliga Birgittas uppenbarelser. Edited by G.E. Klemming. (Svenska fornskriftsällskapets samlingar 14:1.) Stockholm, 1862.
Didrik 15th c. = Sagan om Didrik af Bern. Edited by Gunnar Olof HylténCavallius. (Svenska fornskriftsällskapets samlingar 10.) Stockholm: Norstedt, 1850–54.
Erikskrönikan 14th c. = Erikskrönikan. Edited by Rolf Pipping. (Svenska
fornskriftsällskapets samlingar 47.) Uppsala, 1963.
(In electronic form at http://www.nordlund.lu.se/Fornsvenska/Fsv%20Folder/.)
GVB 1541 = Nya Testamentet i Gustav Vasas Bibel, 1541. Edited by Natan
Lindqvist. Stockholm: Svenska Kyrkans Diakonistyrelses Bokförlag,
1941.
Historia Trojana 1529 = Historia Trojana. En medeltidsroman om Trojanska kriget från latinet översatt till svenska 1529. Edited by Robert Geete.
(Svenska fornskriftsällskapets samlingar 29.) Stockholm: P.A. Norstedt
& Söner, 1892.
Karl XI almanacka *1655 = Karl XIs almanacksanteckningar. Edited by
Sune Hildebrand. Stockholm, 1918.
L. Petri *1499 = Petri, Laurentius 1571. Then Swenska Kyrkeordningen.
Stockholm.
NT 1526 = Thet Nyia Testamentit på Swensko. [Facsimile.] Malmö, 1951.
464
Peder Månsson c. 1515 = Peder Månssons Bondakonst. Peder Månssons
skrifter på svenska. Edited by R. Geete. (Svenska fornskriftsällskapets
samlingar 43.) Stockholm, 1913–1915:189–364.
Pentateuchparafrasen c. 1330 = Svenska medeltidens bibelarbeten I. Edited
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Ristell, Några mil från Stockholm, 1787. Edited by Gösta Langenfeldt &
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Deras Tillstånd. Bidrag till Kännedom om de svenska landsmålen och
svenskt folkliv 17.3:1–64.
Old Norse texts
Edda. Die Lieder des Codex Regius. Fourth edition. Edited by Gustav
Neckel & Hans Kuhn. Heidelberg: Carl Winter Universitätsverlag, 1962.
Gulathings-Lov = Den ældre Gulathings-Lov. In: Norges gamle love indtil
1387. Edited by R. Keyser and P.A. Munch. Christiania, 1846:3–110.
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